http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/ en Copyright 2008 Thu, 08 May 2008 21:12:21 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss The older I get, the fewer things I want. I am very, very lucky to have everything I need and much of what I want. With age also comes the knowledge that much of what I have I neither need nor want. Granted, much of the stuff isn't actually mine, and I have no real use for a two-foot high stack of ham radio magazines. This made it difficult for my friends and family when I recently turned 40. What I really wanted was to take to dinner the people who had made the last 40 years so good. They http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/05/best_birthday_present_ever.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/05/best_birthday_present_ever.html essays Thu, 08 May 2008 21:12:21 -0500 After SakeFest, GR and I went to dinner in Center City. (I know the area east of Broad and west of Washington Square has a catchy name -- maybe Washington Square West -- but it's not catchy enough for me to remember.) During our wanderings, I spotted TBar, 117 S. !2th, which I'd wanted to try since first learning that my old neighborhood went upscale a few years after I moved out. That, and we were down to PG Tips loose tea for breakfast. TBar is both retail and restaurant; I was interested only in the retail. They have an http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/05/tbar.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/05/tbar.html shopping Thu, 01 May 2008 21:14:28 -0500 Biscuits have mystified and intimidated me all of my Northern life. One needs a "delicate hand" we're told. Biscuits should be tender, flakey and impossibly tall. The ideal of Southern cooks can make biscuits without measuring, knowing only from the feel of the dough how much to add. Even being born in the South is no guarantee of biscuit prowess; witness the scene in To Kill a Mockingbird when Scout complains of home ec class, and the rock-hard biscuits she made. (I'd also like to say we'd never think of wasting good food on sartorial concerns.) So, because the idea http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/04/biscuit_quest.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/04/biscuit_quest.html essays Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:53:17 -0500 GR and I went to Sake Fest. Most memorable events: the catgirl, octopus salad from Fork, Gekkikan sake cocktails (a mohito and something with pineapple juice -- I'm happy to say I identified both the mint and the pineapple), crisp and fruity bubbly sakes, and best of all: dinner at the unfortunately named Lolitas on S. 13th. Tasting wine makes me feel incompetent enough; it reduces me to the mantra of philistines everywhere: "I know what I like!" Sake just seems out of my league: I have few chances to try anything other than Gekkikan (I live in Pennsylvania, home http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/04/sakefest_2008.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/04/sakefest_2008.html reviews Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:00:47 -0500 http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/03/grab_bag.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/03/grab_bag.html essays Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:20:34 -0500 Nearly twenty years ago, my sister took me to dinner at Upstares at Varalli, because it was across the street from her hotel. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, as she was and is never in town. I'm fairly certain it was a Tuesday. I also remember clearly where we sat (windows along Locust Street), what I ate (linguine or fettuccine) and most of all, what we discussed: should I start seeing this new guy I'd met? She gave me the best advice ever: yes, date him. He and I eventually moved to an apartment around the corner and ate at http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/03/still_crazy_after_all_these_ye.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/03/still_crazy_after_all_these_ye.html reviews Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:05:31 -0500 It might be all about the food, but heavens, I hate cooking on weeknights. Whenever I read someone berating the rest of us for not cooking nutritious, wholesome, organic, complex, three-course meals from scratch every night of the week, I seriously want to kidnap the writer and make them cook in my kitchen and on my schedule for a month. When Food TV ran "Gordon Elliott's Door Knock Dinners," I always hoped he'd show up at my door and I could see what he would make of two frozen pounds of butter, some limp greenery, and half a can of http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/02/frittattalike.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/02/frittattalike.html essays Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:03:15 -0500 Whenever I'm downtown at night, I like to try a new restaurant because there is always a new place I haven't tried, and if I want to eat the same-old, same-old I can stay at home. Last night it was Miran at 2034 Chestnut after a massage at Total Serenity at 2108 Walnut. The atmosphere is "take out," but he food is better than that. Miran's a BYOB, and, because I don't usually have a B tucked in my bag, I had the hot tea, which was probably Hyeonmi cha, Korean roasted brown rice tea. It was a wonderful antidote http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/01/miran_center_city.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/01/miran_center_city.html reviews Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:06:21 -0500 http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/01/spatze_spatze_man.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2008/01/spatze_spatze_man.html essays Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:19:57 -0500 Fourteen mini-loaves of Stollen chilling so that I can bake them after picking up my in-laws. They sit on the leftover beer and wine from the party: half a case hard cider, a case of beer, two cases of wine. A case plus of Yuengling is still out back. Soda is ... somewhere else. http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/12/how_i_spent_my_christmas_even.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/12/how_i_spent_my_christmas_even.html essays Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:48:25 -0500 Since Thanksgiving, I've been working on what will be a big, longish project: updating the Advent calendar. It no longer links just to a recipe. Instead, each day offers a Christmas memory, a recipe, and a nifty link. And yes, I did use Leslie Harpold's format for this. I'm slowly realizing the insane amount of work I've set out for myself. Insane when you think I spend 5:00 to 5:30 getting my son from daycare, 5:30 to 7:00 cooking and eating dinner, then 7:00 to 8:30 getting my son ready and into bed. If you have any cool holiday links, http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/12/the_new_advent_calendar_is_up.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/12/the_new_advent_calendar_is_up.html essays Sat, 01 Dec 2007 07:58:51 -0500 More and more, Thanksgiving has become a distraction -- nay, an impediment -- to my real goal for November: preparing for Christmas. This may be my husband's favorite holiday, but my own feeling is must I? For various reasons -- four sets of parents, the only grandchild, an unwillingness to eat the same food every year -- we've hosted Thanksgiving since before we were married. Thanksgiving was so early this year it completely blindsided me. One weekend I'm baking fruitcake, the next I'm making a grocery list over breakfast so that I can make cranberry sauce that afternoon. On the http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/11/thanksgiving_no_thanks.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/11/thanksgiving_no_thanks.html essays Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:01:25 -0500 It's not Thanksgiving yet, but Halloween is long past and it's more than time for baking fruitcake. (I'm also half way done my holiday shopping, but no, I don't want to see any Christmas displays in the stores yet.) The critical ingredient for fruitcake success or failure is candied citrus peel, what the British and Irish call mixed peel. This replaces the revolting mixed peel from the super market (which you can't buy now, anyhow). Real mixed peel is hard to find in America, but the good news is that home-made candied peel is easy, if time-consuming. I don't have http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/11/time_to_make_the_fruitcake.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/11/time_to_make_the_fruitcake.html essays Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:01:20 -0500 No longer do people avoiding eggs and dairy have to accept second-string (or third-string, or ...) cupcakes, thanks to Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I'd bought this to bake birthday cupcakes for a toddler with severe and extensive food allergies: no one realized they were egg- and dairy-free. This is a great book for anyone baking for vegans, those with food allergies, or anyone who likes cupcakes. At first, I was hesitant to commit to a full vegan cookbook and tried the sample chocolate cupcake recipe. It wowed everyone, I bought the book, and baked over a gross (a http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/09/vegan_cupcakes_take_over_the_w_1.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/09/vegan_cupcakes_take_over_the_w_1.html reviews Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:45:08 -0500 http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/09/caterers_save_me.html http://www.christmas-baking.com/itsAllAboutTheFood/2007/09/caterers_save_me.html essays Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:10:51 -0500