A week late, sorry. I went through my Try file and picked out all the recipes I thought my dad would have liked best. Of course, it ended up skewing German…. The Black Forest Cake was a knockout and not hard at all to make—once you got past the hand-grating of 9 oz of semisweetContinue reading “ESC #21: Father’s Day Edition”
Category Archives: blackbird
ESC #20: DessArt Day 2 (with linocuts!)
Credit to my friend Gina for the clever name for our casual art workshop-plus-dessert-bar series (it’s a series now because we’ve had 2! And there’s a third planned for August now on bookmaking…). Here were the recipes this time. They were all pretty good, but I think the favorites were the blackberry tart and theContinue reading “ESC #20: DessArt Day 2 (with linocuts!)”
Tisane of the Week: Rose Honeysuckle Mint (etc.)
I inherited a crazy yard—really a mini urban farm complete with livestock (the chickens were written into the counter-offer): there are six fruit trees (sadly down from 8), 7 raised beds in different levels of the yard, and untold numbers of flowering shrubs and annuals, not to mention patches of perennial herbs here and there.Continue reading “Tisane of the Week: Rose Honeysuckle Mint (etc.)”
Meatball Stuffed Spaghetti Squash
I know…. Spaghetti squash is so 2000s Paleo, right along with Zoodles and all that carb-phobic jazz. But this dish turns out to be really good. Split a spaghetti squash in half, scoop out the seeds, rub with olive oil, and roast until really nice and soft and roasty; it took a solid 40 minutesContinue reading “Meatball Stuffed Spaghetti Squash”
Letter of Recommendation: FOOD⭐️STAR
Ever since we lost Japanese Style Originator from Netflix, I’ve been missing their deep-dive videos into traditional ways of making and doing things. Fortunately, I found FOOD⭐️STAR, which fills part of that gap for me. They’re particularly strong on artisan bakeries in Japan, both traditional and Western style ones, but they also feature wagashi (teaContinue reading “Letter of Recommendation: FOOD⭐️STAR”
ESC #19: Dessert Bar (and suminagashi)
My friend Nicole, an art professor, came up with the idea of doing a little home suminagashi (paper marbling with Japanese ink) workshop for some friends, and I thought it sounded like a great time to clear out some desserts from my Try file in Paprika; apparently, when I save recipes, about 2 out ofContinue reading “ESC #19: Dessert Bar (and suminagashi)”
ESC#18: Cinco de Mayo
This was funny b/c I just felt like making Mexican food this week and then realized as I was making the menus the day of that it was Cinco de Mayo. My Burqueña Sense must have been tingling…. Everyone really like the way this menu came together. The puerco de verdolagas (which had dandelion greensContinue reading “ESC#18: Cinco de Mayo”
ESC#17
This one had a Silk Road theme, kinda. The standout was David Leibovitz’s Panisse recipe, but the cake from the now-defunct Local Milk blog was great, too!
ESC #15
Dessert was the star this week: this chile-lime pineapple with cardamom-lime ice cream recipe. And the sleeper favorite was the yummy chaat mixes that Nicole brought to top the impromptu chaat salad she added to the menu; I’ll add that recipe when she gives it to me. I tried to make glacéed bananas to goContinue reading “ESC #15”
Cooking and Baking at Altitude
I’ve been cooking at altitude (4500 ft above sea level and above) for my whole life with a couple of brief exceptions, and it’s a lot simpler than cookbooks make it seem if you understand two basic principles: After all my bragging about simplifying things, I do have to point out three exceptions to theContinue reading “Cooking and Baking at Altitude”
The Rookery 