Tomato Basil Soup with Green Beans and Beet Pesto– Secrets of Skinny Cooking

Membership in a local CSA (community supported agriculture) presents a pleasant challenge—to eat fresh that which is in season. As a relatively new Louisiana gardener, I am on the steep and ascending edge of the learning curve. So far this year I’ve struck gold on Creole tomatoes, okra, limes and jalapeno peppers. They say eggplants […]

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 […]

Cilantro Pesto and Krakow Pajda

Pajda is what to ask for in Krakow. Pajda means “thick slice” – of country bread, upon which is smeared lard, garlic, onions, and spicy sausage. Pajda goes well with hunger. Krakow was easily my favorite city in Eastern Europe. Great energy to the place, the bombs of WWII missed it, and there happened to […]

Pane al Pesto and Bilious Emesis

The preparation of this bread begs a thoughtful reflection on green vomitus–bilious emesis–(words which sound like honorary degrees at Hogwarts) in the context of my current assignment in the pediatric emergency department (where Frozen’s hit song “Let It Go!” blares from personal DVD players behind every curtain in contention with the equally unsettling sounds of […]