I 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 […]
READ ONSome terrifically inventive pastry photography by way of India. Go through the whole album.
READ ONSeems some New Yorkers have finally invented the thousand-dollar pizza. I didn’t even know we needed one! (Try my Chicago deep dish instead).
READ ONAs you know I’ve been following the travails of the nation’s number one fried pastry chain, Dunkin’ Donuts, with some interest lately. They’ve trained their sights on Starbucks (who have been flagging in the customer loyalty polls the past year), with the clear intention of flaming their collective rear. Late last week they made great […]
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