Gilding the Lily since 2006
I know this isn’t quite the way the Italians do it, but I reckon they might if they got their hands on a bushel of sweet Meyer lemons. I don’t have anything against Sorrento lemons, mind, I just think these smooth little globes of sunshine …
For some, winter is the season of dour darkness, of cold feet and of carbohydrate comforts. For others, winter is the season of sunny citrus, acidic and bright. Those of us who hail from climes north of around 40º trend toward the former category, but …
I’m starting to get it, this notion that parenting is hard. Thing is, the parenting part is actually pretty easy. I have an extraordinarily easy baby that pretty much does nothing but sleep and laugh. Taking care of him isn’t the hard part. It’s the …
Lemon curd. Oh, is this ever a Thing. How have I lived this long without making my own? Creamy-custardy, tart-sweet lemony, and my touch: vanilla-lavendery. To make a batch big enough for canning, I quadrupled this basic recipe: cream together 3 eggs and 1/3 cup …
Now that summer is winding toward its long-lit end, our minds shift toward the harvest. Anyone with a patch of dirt is likely up to their ears in a plenitude of homegrown produce, and this overabundance can daunt the timid. What do you do with …
The Great Northwest is famous for many foods, and while hazelnuts and salmon usually come to mind as the obvious meibutsu, we also grow spectacular berries. Among them, Vacciniums – huckleberries, cranberries and blueberries – are Queen. These Ericaceous lovelies, to which my namesake heather …
I can’t really call this Irish soda bread, or even Irish-American soda bread, since my ingredient limitations forced my creative hand (as they tend to do). This is, though, a basic soda bread – a quick bread leavened with baking soda instead of yeast. Since …
The little white peach sapling that I planted last fall shot up about 6 feet this spring, splashing out a crown of wavy, crescent-shaped leaves and slutty, hot pink blossoms like too much rouge on a little girl that got into her mother’s makeup. When, …
I can’t seem to get enough strawberries these days. I cruised through 4 lbs of them in about a week, just eating them raw (stemmed and halved, with my fingers), and then had to pick up another flat of them over the weekend. It’s insidious. …