citrus roast carrot and avocado salad

My summer vegetable garden was put to rest over a month ago. A few green onions, some herbs and berry plants are left. It looks barren and dormant, because it is.

picking blackberries down on the canal

When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking of nothing, cramming black honey of summer into my mouth – Mary Oliver

mustard mint potato and green bean salad

When I was a little girl, I equated certain foods with my different sets of grandparents. I could count on my Grandma Jeffress to have things like Chuck Wagon casserole and pigs-in-a-blanket made with Vienna sausages or tacos with the lettuce wilted in the sauce and heaped with shreds of cheddar cheese.

rhubarb pie with cardamom spiced crumbs

You know you have good friends when they send a quick text and then leave a bag of fresh rhubarb on your doorstep. Kathy recently did just that. When I got home, there sat a brown paper bag full of rhubarb.

beef stroganoff, on a cloudy day

Mostly I cook from the hip. What does that mean? Well, I’m notoriously bad at following directions, and I’ve been known to veer off the beaten path. So, photos and a list of ingredients work as recipe “suggestions.”

green, grassy sparrowgrass aka asparagus

My rebelliousness went so deep that, faced with a can of asparagus that instructed me to open at this end, I always, stubbornly, opened it at the other.

– Dorothy Gilman

fennel + apple salad

Distinctively dark and aromatic black licorice or ropey, chewy Red Vines, which leathery candy do you fancy? Mine was always Red Vines. I couldn’t bear the thought of “real” licorice; that was until I was introduced to divinely light, crisp fennel.

corned beef, cabbage and root vegetable hash

A container of last weekend’s St. Paddy’s day leftovers sat in the fridge. It wasn’t quite enough for a whole meal, but too much for one person’s lunch. Seriously, I hate to toss things out so that wasn’t even an option.

french onion soup: water and onions

Captain’s Log – Day 4 of being completely surrounded by snow, and I have a few observations:

I’m drinking more than my fair share of turmeric-chai tea with milk and honey.

It’s quite a fab antidote to the icy, white outside. It contains many warming spices like turmeric, ginger, cardamom and black pepper. I know it sounds strange to put pepper in a drink, but trust me, it’s darn good.

hot chocolate day!

National fill-in-the-blank Food Day is a thing. Being a food geek, but not a snob, I know stuff like this. For instance, yesterday was all about croissants. A beautiful celebration of flaky, laminated dough bathed in butter – oh, my. And, gloriously today happens to be equally epicurean; it’s National Hot Chocolate Day!