Winter
Warm Salted Caramel Sauce with Orange Blossom
Homemade salted caramel sauce is simple to make–mine includes a whisper of orange blossom water, so delicious with the caramel flavor. Serve the caramel sauce with sliced apples and more sea salt to garnish. It’s also wonderful over ice cream, apple pie, apple cake, banana bread, and anywhere else you like your caramel. The dinner…
Read MoreLemony Chicken Rice Soup, Avgolemono
Avgolemono soup is a simple, gluten-free Greek soup of lemon, egg, chicken and rice. Supreme comfort food! Avgolemono is even better after it has had time to sit and gain body, creaminess, from the rice. Make it early in the day, or a day in advance, and reheat it carefully over medium low heat. The…
Read MoreOlive Oil Popcorn with Za’atar
I don’t remember seeing movies in the theater all that frequently growing up. It was a very occasional treat, and I’m sure this was not out of discipline or deprivation, but because it just wasn’t the industry it is today. My great movie-watching memories are rooted most comfortably at home, with my brother and sister…
Read MoreDanny Talami
Dan and I just celebrated our 6-month wedding anniversary, and I’ve made what can only be described as a most stunning discovery: seems I’ve married under false pretenses. Now before you go thinking something like this is going to happen, let me explain. Most everyone who spends even a short amount of time in my…
Read MoreCitrus Salad Recipe, and a new Middle Eastern cookbook
Holiday gatherings of our family have always included my mom’s special touches at breakfast. Her favorite of all the citrus fruits is grapefruit, and she painstakingly segments pink grapefruit after pink grapefruit to yield her big bowl of glistening fruit to make our breakfast table a celebration. Only someone (Mom. Me. Peg. If any…
Read MoreSweet Potato Biscuits from Kinfolk Table
The Lebanese, we love our kinfolk. Our kinfolk may be descended from the old country, they may be cousins who are cousins by blood or by affection, they may be neighbors who know when you’re home and when you’re not. Or they may be you and me, who love everything about gathering over good…
Read MoreArugula with Sugared Cranberries & Pancetta. And let’s talk cookbooks.
As I mentioned recently, I am a cookbookaholic. I love to hear about good cookbooks from anyone who is into them. I sort of assume the same of anyone else who likes to collect, cook from, and gift-give cookbooks. So in honor of the cookbook-buying and giving season ahead—in honor of all of the…
Read MoreOrange Blossom Cream Caramels with Sea Salt. A mouthful of happy.
That title, I toyed with it: Cream caramels. Salted Cream Caramels. Orange Blossom Caramels. Orange Blossom Cream Caramels. Then, at last, I couldn’t hold back, and here we are with Orange Blossom Cream Caramels with Sea Salt. The editor in me is apt to lasso such an unwieldy thing as that title and shake it…
Read MoreApple Chips, and an aunt learns how to field trip
I had just driven downstate from Up North, and my nephew came in the door from school. I started pinging him with my usual questions, had it been a music day or phys ed, Spanish or library? Any field trips coming up? Yes, tomorrow! he said. The apple orchard! I launched into how I’d just…
Read MoreLebanese Crunchy Sesame Cookies
If there is one cookie I want to eat every single day, it’s my crunchy sesame seed cookies. So crisp, light, and nutty, they are a perfect combination of flavor and texture. Keep the cookies in an airtight container. I used to travel what seemed like a major hike north in Chicago to get my…
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