Black Bean Tamales with Ancho Adobo

In the precarious midst of hurricane season, I can’t help but work on growing things. The hot summer afternoons are fading into breezy, even cool at times, bright fall days. KP just built us our first raised bed after my experiments in the backyard Earth resulted in a grand total of 17 undersized lima beans. […]

Green and Red Chicken Chilaquiles and Chicharrones Tacos

The spice cha-chas on. Red light, green light, red salsa, green salsa…you’ll be doing the Conga at the stove. After I played this oldie music video, I proceeded to watch every Gloria Estefan classic and now all I have is fantasies of doing a karaoke montage of Conga, Turn the Beat Around, and The Rhythm is […]

Taco Baskets

KP and I are on a Hispanic cuisine kick ever after Labor Day. Just feeling spicy. And also, we’ve been doing the weekend warrior routine as new homeowners and I’m sure the caloric density of Latin dishes is an instinctive choice after free time spent dangling from ladders, kneeling over shrubs, knuckles-deep in garden soil […]

Why I Love New Orleans on Katrina’s Anniversary and Chicken Fricassee

To be a New Orleanian requires one to harbor a certain philosophical slant. More than once I’ve entertained discussions with non-New Orleanian folk that became arguments at a predictable impasse: why choose to live somewhere that is near-certain to flood again? There will always be another Katrina, they say, it doesn’t make any sense; why […]

Pesto Pine Nut Bread and Eudora Welty

In the style of Sesame Street, for lit geeks like myself, this Monday is brought to you by: Eudora Welty and two full French Press carafes of coffee. “For her life, any life, she had to believe, was nothing but the continuity of its love.” ― Eudora Welty, The Optimist’s Daughter I could not imagine […]

Green Beans and Charred Romaine with Anchovy Butter

Tonight felt like an early Thanksgiving. Anchovy butter, I’m convinced, is the Golden Ticket for vegetables. Just half a stick of butter, and couple salty fish, and suddenly, two pounds of green fibrous plants become dinner. Really. I ate this for dinner and I felt just as satisfied as though I had eaten a cheeseburger. […]

Quinoa Bread

All the time that I would spend coming up with some clever drivel to write here I conscientiously divert to the husband who has been gone for six weeks. Meanwhile, enjoy this happy commercial for easy quinoa bread.   Quinoa Bread Adapted from Five Minutes a Day Artisan Bread 3 cups whole wheat flour 3 […]

Avocado Hollandaise on Poached Eggs on Rye

Glorious, just glorious. This is what my honorary grandfather Stanley says of everything he eats. His voice rang through my brain this morning when finally I had a breath of fresh time to make my own breakfast, slow, and with luxury. I sat with a full French press of coffee next to me on the […]

Cocoa Snowflakes

Just got off the phone with my dear dear friend, forever neighbor, Janelle—and I’m about to dream in snowflakes before I wake up and it all melts with the adrenaline of yet another call day. Happy memories of Minnesota, and more to be make in the land of cocoa snowballs.   Cocoa Snowflakes Adapted from […]