May 2023

I grew my own fava beans this past winter because I’d never eaten a fava bean and I was mighty curious. I planted the fava beans in the fall expecting them to bloom and get seed pods before winter fully set in. In the beginning they grew well, and they flowered. They have quite a…

(I’m making a departure from Joy of Cooking because Marlene requested this recipe. Have fun, Marlene, and everybody else!) I love 2 kinds of donuts: buttermilk bars and old fashioned. None other really. And even these two I don’t like with a ton of extra sugar all over them. I definitely don’t like them with…

I feel an affinity for New Orleans even though I have never been there. It’s the French in me, I guess. My dad and his wife Terri used to go there and get shrimp right off the shrimp boats. Maybe they met the original Bubba Gump. Maybe not. It remains that I like New Orleans…

First Sandwich: Ham with Swiss cheese and Chow-Chow on Red Fife sourdough bread Chow-chow (also known as Mustard Pickle) This Joy of Cooking original first appeared in the 1931 edition and I’m sorry, but I couldn’t make this recipe as instructed because I would have wound up with way too much! The Joy recipe makes…

You might remember the movie Julie and Julia where the main character decided to work her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking making each and every recipe from the beginning of the book to the end. For me the movie was a mildly diverting bit of entertainment. I liked the parts played by…