Month: September 2013
-
The ivy on the back wall of the building I can spy from my office has turned a deep, vibrant crimson. We've put away our summer clothes and pulled out our woolen hats, our thick socks, our flannel pyjamas. The toasty smell of the heating rises up against the windows in the morning. But my…
-
Last week something terribly exciting happened: I found fresh spinach at my local green market. That never happens. Yep, Berlin may have many wonderful things now, but fresh spinach at the market still counts as a rarity. (You can sometimes find it at Turkish grocery stores.) (Proof? My mother-in-law, a fabulous cook and curious human…
-
When we were in Portland for one day last year on the book tour, our hotel was just a short walk from a square filled with food trucks. Once we'd unpacked, changed teeny tiny baby Hugo (sob!) and put on our walking shoes, we headed out for lunch. I wouldn't have been able to eat…
-
The markets are flooding with the last prune plums of the season. I can never walk past the piles of them, dark and smooth, like big purple bullets. I've made Pflaumenmus (see my book for the recipe) and plum cake and poached plums, too, but this past week, a bowl of plums I'd bought the…
-
It's 6:08 pm, Hugo's asleep and I'm nursing a bottle of beer and Googling "how do you know if you have a spirited child". It's been that kind of week. Deep breath. But it's Friday and in a few hours my husband will be here and tomorrow we're giving Max the tour of Hugo's future…
-
Friends, I ask you: do you also have partners who always insist that you keep the kitchen stocked with something that they swear up and down to desperately need, but then never actually eat, leaving you up to your eyeballs in the duly supplied item? For me, or Max, rather, we're talking bananas. Bananas, bananas,…
-
This post's alternate title should be A Cautionary Tale About Avoiding Butter. What happened was I read about cabbage strudel (did ever those two words have better partners?) almost four years ago and dutifully clipped the recipe (actually, by then I think I bookmarked it) and then schlepped that bookmark around with me from New…
-
Aaaaaaand we're back! Thanks, folks, for being so kind while I took some time off. We had a lovely week in Austria, near Salzburg, Sound of Music country, where it really does look like Maria is going to come bounding around the corner in her Tracht any minute now, and Hugo and I spent a…
The Wednesday Chef 