This post is all Mom, in honor of her recent birthday, we celebrate Andie Ellis. I like to think of her as my starter. She is the sourdough from which I’m torn. I’m just a bleb that bubbled off her blob. She is the master bread baker who has taught me everything I know. Now […]
The moon is near full and holidays are lapping in like a glittery tide. We are finally getting a breath of cool air here in the Crescent City and nothing feels better on a cold day than baking. I very much enjoyed the first edition of Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg’s Artisan Bread in Five […]
Just before KP and I left Rochester, where we had painted our home fuchsia and lime, my grandmother Gigi sent me this evocative image by Brian Andreas* which spoke to the compulsion I have long since had ever after living in New Orleans—to splash walls (literal and figurative) with bright colors. To my delight, this […]
Pajda is what to ask for in Krakow. Pajda means “thick slice” – of country bread, upon which is smeared lard, garlic, onions, and spicy sausage. Pajda goes well with hunger. Krakow was easily my favorite city in Eastern Europe. Great energy to the place, the bombs of WWII missed it, and there happened to […]
Finally I have a day off tomorrow. The definition of “over-tired” is when you come home after a long day, set about make some simple snack, like a piece of peanut butter toast, and while waiting for the toaster, watch some late night sketch like Nonsense Karaoke and laugh so hard you have to lie down, […]
We near the end of the symbol-rich Holy week, and the start of the Poetry Month, and so I offer the lyrics to an old hymn we sang several Lenten Sundays ago which makes bold the fascinating parallels and circularity to the symbols we celebrate at Easter. Ahem, not chocolate eggs. O wheat, whose crushing […]
Well if I had pralines for breakfast, I suppose it’s a sign that I’m returning to good health (or rather, evidence that indeed I do share genetic material with the estimable lifelong confectioneer, Ruth Broomfield.) Between Whiplash and Birdman, jazz featured prominently this year at the Academy Awards, and something about jazz gets me in a […]
People often ask me with abject incredulity, You really make all your own bread? How do you have time? There are ways, my friends. And this is one of them: Make one batch of bread dough to use all week. There are two main advantages to this: 1) it is more efficient to make dough […]
Litany You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine… -Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass and the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, and the marsh […]