I don’t know what went on Friday and Saturday, but nearly two thousand of you good folks came to see me on each of those days. 1,100 was my previous single-day record, set about 8 months ago. I don’t know what happened out there to generate that kind of traffic, but whatever it was, I’ll […]
READ ONA feverish and wheezing infant will prevent me from carrying on with our couscous cake this week, but here’s wishing everyone out there a happy and holy Easter this Sunday. May your cakes be light and your fillings rich and delectable. Funny isn’t it how when it comes to the holidays we turn to the […]
READ ONI’m big enough to admit it, I’ve been one of those pretentious olive oil buffoons before. I’ve sniffed at a little plastic cup full of Tuscan extra virgin oil as though it were a Baccarat glass full of Château Mouton Rothschild. Oh yes, a hint of pepper and grass, but redolent of the real fruit, […]
READ ONLooking around the food blogosphere this morning, it seems a few of my fellow bloggers are working up quite a lather over what is apparently an attempt by the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association to lobby the FDA into changing rules that dictate what is and what is not allowed to be called “chocolate”. The apparent issue […]
READ ONI do love a good olive oil cake. They can be a little on the “greasy” side since obviously the fat they contain is liquid oil instead of firm butter, but there’s something about that olive oil flavor…well, it gives me that warm fuzzy Old (and I mean Old) World feeling. Olive cultivation is thought […]
READ ONMaybe it’s because I’ve just been making baklava, but this year I’m looking at Easter in a whole new light. Instead of fluffy, coconut-covered lamb cakes and marshmallow bunnies, I’ve got the flavors of the Levant on the brain. So my thought is, why not do something different this Easter? Olive Oil Couscous Cake with […]
READ ONI’ve had a stubborn cold with a low grade fever the past five or so days. Not much of a fever mind you, but enough to make me feel like a pot-holed road from dusk ’till dawn. That combined with stuffed sinuses, coughing and gunky lungs has made sleeping a challenge since Thursday (mind you, […]
READ ONI’m as guilty as the next snooty baking-type of insisting that everything, everything be made from scratch. But phyllo (filo)-based preparations reveal me for the puffed up bag of wind I really am, sending me scurrying off to the frozen section of the nearest mega-mart in dark sunglasses and a trench coat. What can I […]
READ ONBut isn’t that what I’m famous for? Yesterday’s post on janissaries and military service got me ruminating on the subject of combat, and all the schemes various rulers have tried over the millennia to entice other people to fight for them. Nowadays most of us think of military service in terms of modern volunteer armies […]
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