We had no particular plan to stop in Umeå. It was like Vaasa on the Finland side: we needed to stop somewhere, and Umeå was there. But when we got there, it was a beautiful, an utterly gorgeous, northern city: large, fast-moving river as so many of them have*, buildings that were charming and interesting wherever you looked. Very walkable. The ( Read more... )

I had a list. We ignored the list. We burned the list to the ground.

You see, Mom and Grandma and I: we are experienced in the ways of Cookie Day. But having already done one, we had a lot of our usual tricks kind of…handled. One of the ways that you keep three experienced bakers working all day with only one oven is to make things on the stove ( Read more... )

I was going to have a post here called “Beware of People” about generalities that give me hives, about generalizing what People Want and Readers Expect and Editors Demand and how this is really not a good reason to do things in a manuscript, like, ever. (“So-and-so wants this and it really works in this story” can be a great reason. That’s an ( Read more... )

Review copy provided by author (Magenta Griffith).

The full title of this book, which would have made for a very long blog post title, is The Prodea Cookbook: Good Food and Traditions from Paganistan’s Oldest Coven. I am not a pagan, but I am a cook, and when Magenta heard me talking about doing book reviews at Minicon, she asked if I only review ( Read more... )

I got so wild and crazy today that I cut two thin slices of bread for my sandwich instead of one thick one like God and nature intended.

Don’t worry. It was all right but not so grand that I’ll do it again tomorrow.

You two-bread people, you are a strange lot.

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux

(Since Tili asked so nicely!)

We did thirteen kinds of treat yesterday: chocolate comfort cookies, pepparkakor, strawberry shortbread, lime shortbread, blueberry shortbread, pretzel hugs, sea salt caramels, peanut butter/chocolate fudge, chocolate hazelnut fudge, chocolate-dipped apricots, hazelnut toffee, [redacted as it is a surprise for someone ( Read more... )

Cookie Day is at my house on Friday, and I am…oh, what’s the phrase I’m looking for? Ah yes: mad with power.

It’s an entire day devoted to baked goods. An entire day. And I get minions assistance from Mom and Grandma. And so it feels, today, before I am actually neck-deep in butter and sugar, like the sky’s the limit. I am marshaling my ( Read more... )

I almost didn’t do carrots, because really, carrots! They go in things! There they are, in things! Almost nobody ever says, “Carrots, oh how I need more ways to eat them,” because raw will do, or in most salads, and there you have that: carrots! And you can put them in lemony chicken soup, and you can put them in lamb stew, and you can put them ( Read more... )

1. Roasted beets with walnuts and goat cheese. Heat oven to 400 F. Wash beets and cut the ends off. Make a little packet with foil and put the beets and a little drizzle of olive oil in. Throw on a cookie sheet or other baking dish (or bare in the oven if you trust your foil-packet-sealing abilities). Bake for 40 minutes or until the beets are ( Read more... )

I love cauliflower. Love love love LOVE cauliflower. I particularly love the purple kind. Also the orange, but deep, royal purple cauliflower from the farmer’s market is one of the best treats in the history of treats. For being one of my favorite veg, however, cauliflower has an ugly temper. The revenge it seeks when you ignore it for too ( Read more... )