Quest estate a Middlebury la mia classe e io abbiamo messo gli orecchiette con suga di pomidori fresca! Era squisito. Prima abbiamo messo gli orecchiette: una tezza caldo aqua una e mezzo cociao sale due e mezzo tezze semolina farina (formare gli orecchiette)
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! Today while shopping at the grocery store I came across some beautiful organic strawberries from Florida. They were plump and bright red, not pink, like those that are shipped across the country to South Carolina from California. I was not planning on buying strawberries, but it being Valentine’s Day, I thought why not bring them home and give them a dip in chocolate!
I melted 73% Bittersweet Chocolate discs in a double boiler. Holding the strawberry by its leafy green stem, I carefully dipped each strawberry to coat all sides and placed each on a parchment lined tray, allowing the coating to harden at room temperature.
And so, for Valentine’s Day, some lovely chocolate covered strawberries to share with the ones I love……….
Each morning, I like start my day with a cup of chai latte. I started drinking chai a few years ago, first just from packaged tea bags and then from a lovely loose blend I picked up at the Tea Leaf, Inc. in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal. When I ran out of the loose blend, I decided to start making my own. I searched the internet for recipes, cobbled a few together, and tried making my own blend. The first result was disastrous. My friend Sharon Lacey spends time with Geshe Dakpa Topgyal at the Charleston Tibetan Society and gave me his chai recipe. I played around with it and came up with a tasty blend, but there was still something missing. Another friend, Christopher Liberatos, was in India years ago studying architecture, and knew he’d written down a chai recipe somewhere. He turned it up after digging through his travel journals and revealed the missing ingredient that would give my blend the zing it was missing: pepper! Continue reading Chai
Citron as part of the Christmas dinner table centerpiece
For the past four Christmases I have been lucky enough to find citron, a.k.a. Buddha’s hand, at my local Whole Foods grocery store. I love the way it looks in fruit arrangements and the added bonus of using it in one of my favorite bread recipes, Pane de Marinaio / Sailor’s Bread, fromThe Italian Baker by Carol Field. Alan Davidson writes in Fruit: A Connoisseur’s Guide and Cookbook that it came to represent wealth and in India the god of wealth, Kuvera is always represented as holding a citron in one hand and a mongoose spewing jewels in the other! Continue reading Candied Citron
I made this marmalade to give as holiday gifts and actually make it year-round whenever I see nice limes at the grocery store. What I like about this recipe is that it takes three days to complete; the process is broken down and each stage doesn’t take too long, giving me time to do other things in the kitchen, great especially during the busy holiday season. Continue reading Old Fashioned Lime Marmalade
Sunday was the Charleston Christmas Parade, of which I was an enthusiastic participant. I marched with Magar Hatworks, donning a beautiful cocktail hat (gay apparel) and singing Christmas carols (fa la la la la la la la la) to the merry crowd lining the streets. As our (jolly) group strolled along the historic streets of downtown Charleston, we sipped on Hot Buttered Rum to keep us warm, and keep our spirits high.