Seed catalogs read like good novels—I could spend hours poring over the pages, envisioning the splendor to spring forth from each. The names read like luscious dishes on a restaurant menu, or characters in a Gone With the Wind-era romance: Lemon Drop zucchini and Green Knight eggplant and Kandy Korn pumpkin and Cherry Belle radishes.
Read moreCHOCOLATE CHIP SCONES
Summer announced itself today in the form of hot, humid, heavy air that greeted me as I pushed open the front door with my bike at 8 AM. Although it’s gotten warm, the mornings have still retained a cool freshness that I associate with spring. But today heralds the arrival of summer weather in earnest: the kind of heat that allows for a t-shirt and shorts even at night. The kind that makes you want a cherry-lime popsicle and the smell of hot asphalt and the juice of a ripe peach on your fingers.
Read moreALMOND PASTE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
The chorus of birdsong starts up every morning around 5 AM. It’s loud enough to wake me up until I close the window and, yawning, fall back to sleep. The backyard is becoming more lush with every passing day—purple day lilies bloom beside the raised beds and a climbing bush with flowers the delicate blush pink of the inside of a seashell has taken over the back corner of the fence. The smell of fresh mint (which grows rampant among the flower beds) and just-cut grass hangs in the air. Bright green hydrangea bushes are poised for their moment, the buds tightly curled still like tiny closed fists. But I know what splendor lies within—violent bursts of color that erupt suddenly in late June like fireworks.
Read moreSTRAWBERRY BASIL ICE CREAM
I eat ice cream year-round and think everyone else should too. Summertime means outdoor ice cream season, of course, which is a little different from curling up at night in the winter with a spoon and a bowl of dark chocolate cacao nib gelato. I like my ice cream in a cup, in general, but there’s something particularly wonderful about ordering a cone on a bright sunny day and letting it drip down onto your fingers, leaving a sticky sugar residue that signals it’s time for a dip in cold ocean water at a hot sandy beach.
Read moreTURKEY PICADILLO
Are you confused? Wondering if you’ve come to the wrong website? But that isn’t a baked good, you’re thinking. In fact, that looks an awful lot like a nourishing and savory dinner, not a crinkly chocolate cookie or a fruit-studded, sugar-dusted cake. What the heck!
As it turns out, man (or woman) cannot survive on biscuits and brownies alone. You could certainly try (I’ve done it) but you’ll likely end up slightly puffy in the facial region and craving a bowl of crunchy romaine lettuce something fierce.
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