being not doing

On Monday, Election Eve, I had unwittingly double-booked myself. In addition to committing to help get out the vote in Virginia, I was meant to be contributing a dessert to a lunchtime program with a Russian1 theme. My assigned baked good was Medivnyk, Ukrainian spiced honey cake, which I suspect — and the […]

For the first time this year I attended my alma mater’s annual local potluck dinner. I signed up to bring a dessert, as I’m always glad to have an opportunity to make a pie or tart when there are others available to eat most of it! This time I chose to make an […]

Wild persimmons.
Last year we foraged wild (American) persimmons from an undisclosed location in our county. All the hippies we know seemed to be wild about the fruit, and having stumbled across a few trees we decided to give them a try. Persimmons being extremely astringent when not quite ripe, it was hard to […]

The freezer.
The major challenge I face with regard to processing and storing all the produce we receive with our farm share is the limited space in the freezer. We agreed to get a chest freezer this summer, but haven’t wanted to go ahead with that purchase until we get the basement repairs taken care […]

Squash!
This summer we received a lot of squash from our farm share, and I do mean that nearly literally. Four butternut squashes and about that much again of an enormous squash called courge longue de Nice, which I had neither heard of nor seen before joining our CSA. In addition to this bounty, […]

My first cherry pie.
This summer has been full of pies, and I expect I’m not quite done yet as I’ve promised a friend a peach pie for her September birthday. The peach pie will be the sixth pie of the summer, and I think that’s a nice round number. I’m sure there will […]

Rhubarb Ginger Galette, round two.
We celebrated Memorial Day by attending a party at ‘our’ farm: Even’ Star Organic Farm, where we’re members of the CSA. We’d had a fun time at the autumn party and enjoyed the drive down, which included stopping on the way for pumpkins and honey at a farm stand in […]

Over the past month we’ve been shifting to a high-fiber low-saturated-fat way of eating in our house. Because of my eating choices — no mammal flesh, no dairy — we largely ate this way already. Largely hasn’t been good enough, though: my partner’s cholesterol is unacceptably high. Not just high overall, but […]

This week we made blondies (p. 218), a cookie bar that I’d never made and rarely eat. For the 5 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, we used Icelandic chocolate, sold as part of the ’sustainable Iceland’ project (I’m guessing that means ‘helping Iceland have an economy so it can sustain its existence as a nation’ […]

Last night we got back on track with our regular Thursday cookie date, and made janhagels (p. 304). These were, in my opinion, the best cookies yet. As advertised, they were almond-flavored dough, covered with sliced almonds, cinnamon and sugar. Delicious! I have an affinity for European style cookies, the type […]