Cooking
Casaubon's Book
Category archives for Cooking
Quick Breads
Posted by Sharon Astyk on November 25, 2012 I’ve been making a lot of quick breads lately – partly it is the season, and they freeze and store well. They make good gifts, good afternoon snacks for the kids, good “Oh, crap, we’re just about out of bread and I need it ASAP” solutions and other happy things. Quick breads, for those of…
So What Are you Making for Thanksgiving?
Posted by Sharon Astyk on November 20, 2012 So what’s on for Thanksgiving dinner at your place? Wanna pass on that favorite recipe that you simply can’t get away with not making? Here’s the (still slightly tentative) menu for us – w e just added a few more guests at the last minute, and I might find myself compelled to add more food,…
Cobbler, Crumble, Grunt, Pandowdy, Brown Betty, Crisp…
Posted by Sharon Astyk on May 28, 2012 For some reason the steamed and boiled fruit pudding never properly took permanent hold in the New World. It was, by and large, the dessert of choice in Britain for centuries. You could certainly find it in the early days of the colonies, and into the early 19th century, basically as long as open-fireplace cooking…
Fermentation: To Infinity and Beyond!
Posted by Sharon Astyk on May 11, 2012 I get a lot of books for review, and for the most part, they are wonderful surprises. Because I receive and read so many books, I rarely sit around saying “Hey, where’s my review copy of…X?” Generally I’ve got a giant pile of books that I need to get to anyway, so I’m much more…
Monday What-to-Eat Post
Posted by Sharon Astyk on May 8, 2012 So here’s what we actually ate yesterday. In addition to the list below, btw, C. and K., the new guys ate a fair number of totally non-local oranges and bananas, as well as some local apples. Because they’ve experienced real hunger, they have a bowl of fruit in their room that they can eat anytime,…
What To Eat Week
Posted by Sharon Astyk on May 8, 2012 it has been quiet around here because late last Tuesday we got a placement of two boys, C., 7 and K., 8. In the chaos of getting everyone settled, dealing with all the legal requirements, paperwork and appointments that a foster placement entails and getting them back to school, the blog has taken a backseat,…
What’s With the No-Knead Bread Thing?
Posted by Sharon Astyk on April 26, 2012 Just about every sustainability magazine on the planet, much less the food ones seems obsessed with no-knead breads. No-knead is trumpeted by everyone on the planet as the easy, awesome way to make bread, the thing that will convert non-bread makers into converts. Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t really have a dog…
First Things
Posted by Sharon Astyk on March 19, 2012 The season cycled over the weekend – officially it is not quite spring, but in fact, spring now has a toe hold. Even if it goes back to chilly or even snows, the ground is too warm for it to last, by the end of an unusually warm week the grass will be green and…
De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum
Posted by Sharon Astyk on January 17, 2012 I’ve always read cookbooks the way one reads novels, not only for recipes but for plots, stories and bits of detail, and one of the details I always look for are acknowledgements of particular tastes in my cookbook authors. The reason I look for this is that cookbooks are usually a uniquely authoritative genre –…
The Soup Lady
Posted by Sharon Astyk on January 4, 2012 In college I lived in a house where I was the only female resident among a largish group of guys. Along with assorted boyfriends, girlfriends and hangers on, our house became a hang-out for a lot of people, and we regularly sat down with 15-20 people for dinner. Our food budgets, however, were not of…