This is a simple side dish that turns even bulk, supermarket carrots into something special. The combination of the sweet roasted carrots and the salty feta works really well together, and the parsley and lemon keep everything fresh and bright tasting. This dish couldn’t be simpler – toss carrots in olive oil and season with…
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The Bee Smoker Cocktail
What happens when the light and lovely classic cocktail The Bee’s Knees goes to the dark side? You get this – The Bee Smoker. The Bee Smoker is a cocktail for big, peaty Islay Scotch lovers who want something a little more playful than a finger of Highland Park 25, or who are trying to…
Toxin Free DIY Citrus Cleaner
As you may have noticed by my Meyer lemon obsession, it’s citrus season, and I couldn’t be happier. As I’ve mentioned before, any pretense of locavore principles goes out the door for a case of mandarin oranges or a perfect, juicy grapefruit. While I’m paying the karmic debt for the food miles it takes to…
How To Make Salt Preserved Meyer Lemons (The Easy Way)
It’s Meyer lemon season and I’m going nuts. (Meyer lemon curd, anyone?) Regular readers probably already know how much I love salt-cured lemons. They are an essential condiment around my house, worked into salad dressings, braises, rice pilaf, fresh salsa and more. Last year, I ran out of salted Meyer lemons in July, with months…
Three Steps To Reduce Your Consumption
I’m not here to shit on anyone’s Target habit, but I imagine most of my readers agree with me that lowing our overall consumption is a good idea. Consuming less lowers our environmental impact. Less consumption usually means less spending, and most folks like having more money or less debt. At a personal level, many…
Easy Cabbage and Pasta with Creamy Mustard Sauce
The dish came about as so many do. I was searching for inspiration in the fridge and found only cold, leftover cooked pasta and a head of green cabbage. Cabbage and noodles can seem ho-hum, but more than one civilization has applied culinary alchemy to them and made greatness happen. I won’t claim this dish…
The Fennel Bailey Cocktail
Gerald and Sara Murphy were rich ex-pat Americas living la Vie de Bohème in 1920s Paris. They threw fabulous parties for their artist and writer friends – F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter and other luminaries – who lined up to enjoy the expertly mixed (and fully hosted) drinks developed by Gerald. The…
Oil Pulling: Never Again
Have you heard of oil pulling? It’s one of those things that’s all the rage in natural-living circles right now. If you read up on oil pulling, you’ll hear that this traditional Ayurvedic oral care technique naturally detoxifies, whitens teeth without chemicals, strips teeth of plaque, kills harmful bacteria that have taken up residence in…
How To Make Quince Paste
Quince is an interesting fruit. It’s hard and dry and astringent when raw, but floral and delicate if cooked. If you put your nose into a bag full of ripe quince, the perfume of the fruit shows its promise. Quince paste (often called by it’s Spanish name, dulce de membrillo) is a popular spread in…
Seed Selection Made Very, Very Simple
Heather, a friend of mine and a fellow blogger over at Queen Bee Coupons, emailed me last week and said, I’m completely overwhelmed by the options in the seed catalogs. I just want you to tell me what to order. I want simple and I want a little bit of everything – a selection of…
Beet Greens with Lemon, Bacon and White Cheddar
With beets, you get two great vegetables for the price of one. The greens are very similar to chard (beets and chard are closely related) but with thinner stems and a smoother, smaller leaf. This easy preparation is a variation of my standard, go-to method for skillet cooking greens. Here, beet greens get paired with…
The Boeing Cocktail
It’s Friday! Time for the possibly-soon-to-be-regular feature Cocktail of the Week! Tonight, a house variation of a very old school cocktail called The Aviation. The combination of gin and cherry brandy or maraschino liquor (no relation to those God-awful bleached-and-died cherry things) is better than it sounds. Our house variation is a bit sweeter, but…