Month: March 2009

  • Sunday morning, pad quietly into the kitchen. Kettle on, cupboards open. Pull out the box of cake flour, just the right amount still in the bag, the bottle of inky molasses, soda, baking powder. Two eggs from the fridge, cold and smooth in my hands; spices from the freezer, their bottles frosting immediately in the…

  • A secret: for nigh on 4 weeks now, I've had a plastic bag full of potatoes sitting on my butcher block counter. They've been sprouting strangely pretty purple and green nubbins, which I rub off each time I pass them. Their skins have grown wrinkly and I've felt worse and worse every time I enter…

  • I have been rendered mute by a chickpea. (Can you say mute when you mean your ability to type?) To be more specific, a jumbo can of chickpeas simmered for close to an hour in a thick, spicy tomato sauce spiked with jalapeño and lemon juice and finished with fresh cilantro (two nights in a…

  • I don't know what it was like where you were on Saturday, but here – just a week after a snowstorm closed schools and streets, and dumped close to a foot of snow on some parts of the (sub)urban area – the sun came out, the snow melted, and my heart bloomed in the warmth…