A blog about food, history, data visualization, and more
From the “Seemed like a good idea at the time” or the “Some things just shouldn’t be” file: I made a batch of my favorite oatmeal-chocolate chunk cookies the other day, and thought I could make them a little bit healthier by tossing in a quarter cup of amaranth seeds. Amaranth seeds contain a nearly […]
Like so many other food bloggers, I heeded the call of Jim Lahey’s No Knead Bread that was written about by Mark Bittman in the New York Times. I enjoy making breads that require lots of kneading and post-knead folding (e.g., the ciabatta from Artisan Breads across America), but a bread that I could make […]
Over 7 years ago, on October 27, 1999, I e-mailed myself a recipe for Pumpkin Pecan Spiral Bread by Amy Scherber (of Amy’s Bread, 3 retail bakeries in Manhattan plus wholesale baking) that was in the New York Times. Like many other e-mailed recipes, it went into my “Food and Wine” folder for later use. […]
This is the shortbread that I grew up eating. My family only made them at Christmas-time, and generally as part of a massive cookie baking weekend. Very small cookie cutters (1/2″ across) in shapes like stars, diamonds and the like made the cookies especially attractive and tasty. There is something about a one-bite cookie that […]
These cookies were inspired by some cookies that found on the bargain shelf at Berkeley Bowl (the best grocery store on the West Coast of the U.S., IMHO). The goal was something with good oatmeal flavor, big chunks of chocolate, and a basic heartiness (but not too hearty–these are cookies, after all!). I created the […]
I don’t have much experience cooking or baking with prunes. In fact, it’s hard to remember the last time I bought prunes. But Prune Blogging Thursday was too hard to ignore, especially since it will only happen one time. My simple idea was to use them instead of figs in filling for cookies. I used […]