I don’t care for beer. Really, I never have. This is not so much a problem now, but imagine being in college, and refusing that red Dixie cup full of suds at a backyard party. It just never seemed right to say, “I would really prefer a glass of wine.” So I took the cup […]

Let me tell you a little story. It’s about being dim (my being dim, of course). I went to the cheese shop that I always go to. They have a really wonderful house-made ricotta there; it’s light, with just the right amount of salt, and tastes like cream. I was going to bake a ricotta […]

My dad never liked his cupcakes to be frosted. This was enough to make my little, childhood head explode. How could he not like mounds of sweet, buttery topping? But my mom respected his preference. Whenever she would make cupcakes, she always left a few unfrosted for him. There they would sit– lonely, topless, dry– […]

This summer I have had malted milk on the brain! For me, this meant malted milk balls, and malted milk powder, getting swirled together with vanilla ice cream to make a malty and delicious mess. The mess was then made into an ice cream cake. The beauty of this dessert, is you get to sit […]

Something happened to the way that I cook when I moved to the East coast. I waste very little. It’s not that I was a spendthrift before– but I was guilty of throwing away sorry looking-vegetables in the bottom of the crisper, or leftovers that weren’t appealing to me anymore– they just got discarded. I […]

Hands down, apricots are my favorite stone fruit. Back in California, they were the first fruit to hit the market in late spring. I would buy them by the pound, keeping a bowl on the kitchen counter where I would eat them out of hand whenever I felt like snack. They were local, sweet, and […]

I’ve been baking a lot lately. A lot of bread. As summer quickly approaches I am furiously trying to finish up all of my recipe testing for the cookbook. I know that come July, when the heat and humidity set in, the last thing I will want to be doing is standing in my kitchen […]

I like cheesecake; but I don’t love cheesecake. So why am I presenting you with a cheesecake recipe, and imploring you all to make it? Because I guess it would be more fitting if this cake were called a cheese cake– a cake with some cheese in it. This recipe is one that displays the […]

I teach a baking class at the local community college. The class is an introduction to baking, so I’ve taught the basics: biscuits, scones, shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate, brownies (chewy and cakey), pies, quiches, and now I’m getting ready to teach a short unit on cakes. So I decided to include a Swiss Roll– […]

I wanted to start this post out lavishly quoting to you the lyrics of a Purim song of my youth. It is sung to the melody of “Roll out the Barrel,” but the words have been changed and this rousing rendition is entitled “Roll out the Megillah” (the scrolls on which the story of Purim […]