• Crispy Herbed Baby Potatoes
    Food

    Crispy Herbed Baby Potatoes

    The golden crust on a roasted potato is the signal that dinner is ready. Chicken can rest for a moment, but when the potatoes are done, it’s time to eat. Crispy on the outside with a piping hot, soft interior, a potato wedge is an ideal mid-week comfort food. While it may seem like a rather humble marriage, the union of heat, fat, and starch elevates a random Wednesday, or a stressful week, like few foods can. It seems simple enough to cut up some potatoes, toss them with a little oil, and pop them in the oven, but this often doesn’t result in the crispy roasted potatoes we want.…

  • Grandma
    Living

    Hands

    “…they kneaded and twisted and unknowingly squeezed youth back up through their veins…” – From “Making Taralli” – a poem of mine originally pushed in Ginosko Literary Journal The women in my family have beautiful hands. Of all their pleasing qualities, this is the one that fascinated me as a child. Well-formed and graceful, not to be confused with delicate, they are the type of hands that served, cooked, and too often were wrung together over loss. As they worked with dough or arranged chicken in a stock pot, their plump skin defined my notions of age in such a way that I found it difficult even to remember the…

  • Blueberry Cake with Lavender Whipped Cream
    Baking

    Blueberry Upside-Down Cake with Lavender Whipped Cream

    Giving a peek at what lies under the frosting, a naked cake is rustic and undone. Fat berries, split figs, or a few blooms are the decorations that indicate this stack of layers is ready for the table. These cakes invite us for a romp, a slice. If a berry rolls this way or that as we dig in, we have just made it more rustic. No one is afraid to cut a naked cake. The original undone cakes were the upside-down type – thin, buttery layers topped with caramelized fruit and maybe a dollop of whipped cream. The allure of a blueberry version goes further. Other fruits may brown…