True confession

When I take food photos for my food blog, I take the photo with a reasonable-looking portion. Then I pile on how much I’m *really* going to eat.
The picture on the left from yesterday’s blog? That’s before. Then I topped off the potatoes. You wouldn’t have been able to see the sandwich in the photo [...]

Why did the chickens lay the eggs? Because it stormed.

We came home from meeting Ralph and Kathy Packard of Misty Meadows Farm yesterday with a dozen beautiful farm eggs in a range of shades of pink and brown. Brian commented immediately upon taking the carton that it was *heavy.* I had to test for myself of course and indeed it was heavy! How could [...]

I want to travel across oceans. I don’t want my food to.

Grab a cup of coffee. This is long.
Books have long influenced me. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle caused me to stop eating meat (most of the time) at age 17. A few years later Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation kicked my fast food habit and pushed me over the line to no beef, pork or [...]

Let there be crêpes

Brian and I have enjoyed crêpes since we began travelling to Europe. I remember hiking up a Montmartre hill while on our first trip, following Rick Steves’ instructions to eat a crêpe in Montmartre while in Paris. We’ve since filled up on delicious and cheap savory filled pancakes at Kompressor in Tallin, Estonia, dined on [...]

Finally — French onion soup

For some reason it never occurred to me that I could probably make a reasonably good French onion soup with vegetable broth. I’ve always assumed the classic hot bubbly cheese-topped soup was off my list due to its beef base.
Over New Year’s we spent a night in Indianapolis and enjoyed dinner at a [...]

I do love cheese — will I love my cheese?

I have very much enjoyed reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle over the last week (makes the bus ride fly by!) and as promised by dottcomments, it indeed shares how to make your very own cheese.
Making my own cheese isn’t something that would have ever occurred to me but now that I’ve read about it I’m [...]

A Magyar flavor in the family

On a dreary grey January day like this it was fun to simmer up some hearty Eastern European soup.
I checked out the immense Passionate Vegetarian from the library last weekend and this Hungarian potato and sweet potato soup is the first recipe we’ve tried from the book. I chose it just because it sounded good, [...]

Mmm, happy new year with yummy couscous

In light of our attempt (we try this for a few weeks most Januaries) to eat a little better we browsed around Epicurious for “healthy” recipes today. I want to counteract some of the holiday eating I’ve indulged in and add more vegetables to my diet and Brian — well, Brian has gained more [...]

I love when you get to open a “special” bottle of wine

We bought this bottle of 2003 Barbera D’Alba while in Piedmont Italy in the fall of 2004.
We’d never had a wine tasting, much less visited a winery before, and stopped in at a small family winery in Novello. The friendly lady of the farm sat us down and poured us several tastes and [...]

Everybody needs an easy weeknight dinner standby

What’s yours?
Mine is Tortellini with Watercress, White Beans and Pine Nuts. I ripped the recipe out of the May 2005 Vegetarian Times. Its oil splatters and other food stains say clearly that this is a favorite around here.
When it’s Monday (Dana’s night in the kitchen) or when I’m home alone, it makes [...]