JAPANESE CHEESECAKE

January 7, 2019 Posie Harwood

There was a brief phase—sometime in middle school—when it was extremely cool to go to the Cheesecake Factory. If you had parents who took you and your friends there for dinner, you had real currency. Everyone wanted to have sleepovers with the girls whose houses held Cheesecake Factory potential. (If you’ve read this site at all, you’ll likely guess that my household was very much not a Cheesecake Factory household. In fact, we didn’t even have fun breakfast cereal, like Cinnamon Toast Crunch—our pantry housed the wholesome trio of Shredded Wheat and Cheerios and Grape-Nuts. The injustice of it all still stings! It’s only in my wise old age that I appreciate deeply having been raised on good, nourishing, homemade food by an exceptional cook and baker. Hi mom!)

EVERYDAY FOCACCIA

January 4, 2019 Posie Harwood

Hi, hello, here we are again at a fresh start to a new year. Like a Monday morning, bright and untouched and waiting. Like a clean, unmarked sheet of paper, ready for a crisp line of sharpened pencil. Poised to be filled with…a to-do list? Projects we want to try? Words of intention? It should come as no surprise (because I am a living, breathing human who occasionally wears ripped t-shirts and still can’t manage to properly apply winged eyeliner) that resolutions don’t appeal to me. I used to consider this a character flaw—thinking I should be able to set a goal and achieve it, regardless of how silly it is.

PECAN STICKY BUN CAKE

December 30, 2018 Posie Harwood

I’ve done remarkably little cooking over the holidays, and even less baking. This is simply a consequence of the happy busyness of the season—and because luckily other people are baking and cooking for me. But there are so many excellent holiday traditions that revolve around recipes. And I do seize the chance, when I have it, to make old favorites (cinnamon rolls and sugar cookies) and attempt new, festive-sounding ones (gingerbread brioche and miniature peppermint chocolate layer cakes).

LEOPARD BREAD

December 29, 2018 Posie Harwood

“Dough is ready!” my mother would call to us. My sisters and I would drop whatever we were doing and rush into the kitchen—elbows out, prepared to claim our spot. The kitchen in our old yellow farmhouse was small but cozy: graying white tile, a white formica kitchen table, and a white refrigerator humming in the corner papered in school notices and birthday invitations and our art. We’d crowd in, kneeling on the mismatched chairs around the table. The focus of all this chaos: an oversized beige ceramic mixing bowl with a navy stripe around the top, filled with bread dough.

GINGER ALMOND BISCOTTI

December 27, 2018 Posie Harwood

There are a lot of nice things about being home, and particularly being home in the wintry days of Christmas. My sisters and I were all at the farm (where we grew up and my parents still live); these days, Christmas looks a little different than it did when we were growing up. Most notably, there are two babies now and a two-year-old. They’re the focus of everyone who walks in the room, and they make the holidays feel more full and joyful than ever. There are also men now, whereas growing up the house was just women women women and my dad. (He is very, very used to the company of lots of ladies, but I do think he secretly thrills every time he walks down to the basement now and finds his sons-in-law drinking beer and watching football.)

Eating and Adventuring