Category


Yes, it's those Sugar Plums

Those Sugar Plums, the ones that dance in the head during the long winter slumber in the most familiar Christmas story that’s likely ever been written. How did I get to be this age, with a teenager and a husband, long gone away from treasured annual reads of that classic story each year, the retelling […]

Cherry Coconut Granola

I very distinctly remember the first granola type cereal I ever consumed. It was CW Post cereal. Anyone remember that? It been ages since one could buy it, but when it first came on the market and my Mom brought it home, I probably ate the whole box by myself. It was kind of like […]

Cookies, version 2009

Beyond the sugar, flour and butter of a good cookie, beyond the proper pan, the parchment or silpat on top and the tried and true recipes, even beyond the cookie jar on the counter, rubbed and worn from decades of hands reaching for it, cookies have become infused as a part of me from as […]

Swedish Fruit Cake (Fruktkaka)

No fruitcake jokes. None. This is NOT anyone’s nightmare of a fruitcake, the hefty, dense and vastly feared offering that comes around this time of year. No sir. This is what something labeled ‘Fruit Cake’ should really be. Of course, with me, if I see anything with figs in it, I’m suddenly propelled to make […]

The truth was in the taste…..

If you saw a recipe for Nutella Swirl Pound Cake, you’d probably think like I did…. “That has to be amazing…..” It was amazing. In fact, amazing or fantastic or decadent or incredible might just begin to scratch the surface of expectation for something with Pound Cake and Nutella in the title. If you’ve got […]

Can a food item be too healthy?

The FDA is pretty darn good at sounding the alarm over foods that one shouldn’t eat, or maybe not in excess. They’re just as good at recanting that advice after a year or so, more research and maybe some hand deep in their back pocket, but do they ever go the opposite direction? Can a […]

Sweet Potato Love…..and a muffin

You’re not a potato, my chalky tuber. You are not even really considered a yam, by the true means of the word. But to avoid confusion and misunderstanding, you are required to carry the moniker ‘Sweet Potato’. You are golden, bright orange, pale yellow and the color of a sunrise, at once starchy and dry, […]

Wine poached prune plums

Stone fruits are fickle little things. They can be at once a juicy sweet perfection, and yet also a rock hard, gritty and sour disappointment. They taunt us endlessly with their possibilities, rarely consistent and yet so tempting. The tiny purple Italian prune plum has the means to bridge this gap between hope and despair […]

Banana Bonanza

Banana bread? Oh yawwwwwnnn……seriously? Oh my yes! Seriously! If you are at all a fan of a good banana bread, one that smells perfectly banana-y, is superbly moist and tender, with the added attraction of caramelized banana pieces on top- yes! on top!- of the bread, then you really, I mean, really need to give […]

Sugar Cookie Memoirs

Growing up in South Minneapolis, there was a bakery that my Mom went to regularly on W. 50th St. between Aldrich and Bryant called Meyer’s Bake Shop. It was a tiny little place with decorated cakes in the windows and mirrored cases along the walls, loaves of yeasty breads in baskets on the countertops and […]