storyofakitchen.com

The author briefly mentions time she spent in Nepal in college, and how an American friend and she loved to eat Nepali pickled potatoes, or aloo ko achar. Potatoes are definitely not what the book is about, yet I hung onto this tidbit because POTATOES! Even if you thought they were boring, Heather Harpham could make these potatoes sound like the most interesting things in the world. Three years ago: I wore a dress made of brassica and allium greens that I made and lotus root salad Five years ago: polenta chips with rosemary and parmesan and date-apricot balls with coconut and cacao nibs and taiwanese stewed sesame ginger chicken

There are eight dough strands to weave for each loaf, like the many experiences I’ve woven in the words of this blog and will continue to, connected and intertwined. The former strand 2 is now strand 1, et cetera, to strand 8 which is horizontal in the below photo. Mentally number each of these strands 1 to 8, going left to right. The former strand 2 is now strand 1, et cetera, to strand 8 (former strand 1).

A pound cake was named such for the amount of each of the main ingredients needed: about one pound of sugar, flour, butter, and eggs each. Without my nightly respite of a good book combined with the anticipatory stress of sitting in a testing center in pseudo-ergonomically adjustable computer station, I may eat those imagined pound cakes off my back only to find them around my middle by the end of the month. The trick is to make sure that the butter is firm but isn’t too soft, or else you’ll end up with a runny batter that won’t swirl quite right for marbling. Pour half the vanilla-orange batter into one loaf pan, pouring into one side of the pan.

With the holidays approaching, there is a onslaught of cookie making in our circles: there are the hard sugar cookies like canvases on which to paint royal icing, sturdy ginger (gingerbread or not), stained glass Linzer, something minty, something chocolate, something cinnamony (nut-hugging cinnamon bear cookies are adorable! ), something embossed-flaky-iced-soft-crispy-sticky-powdery-etc and …. If you want more ideas on great cookie recipes, click on the Recipe Index tab at the top of the home page, then find Desserts and its Cookies subheading. Two years ago: the kitchenista’s best buttermilk biscuits and tricolor macarons with blueberry ganache Seven years ago: sparkling cranberries with cardamom and lemon pudding and fuyu persimmon, pomegranate, and apple fruit salad and homemade root beer syrup and green tomato salsa and soetkoekies handful of chopped unsalted or salted peanuts (for the peanut butter layer and for the chocolate topper)