Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Many people remain calm in the kitchen amid clanging pots and pans, carrot peels in the sink, simmering sauces on the stove, and roasts in the oven. Ladles, spatulas, and wooden spoons are juggled with ease, and fabulous meals suddenly appear, seemingly with little effort.
But mention cake baking, however, and skin turns pale, eyes glaze over, hands begin to tremble, voices crack.
What is it about baking that so intimidates otherwise-confident cooks?
It is true that you can't really see what is going on in the oven, and to peek inside would mean certain ruin. You either need brave faith or studied knowledge in the chemistry of baking, or you need a few foolproof recipes.
Do a Web search for “food” and “love,” and you get a fabulous random return, which involves food addiction, overeating, aphrodisiacs, books on Christianity, politics, soul food, and heart-healthy menus. What about the simple act of cooking as a way to express love? At a recent meal with friends,
The first real snowfall of the season found me gazing out the window at all those white flakes pouring from the sky. Snow is quite bizarre, really, when you stop to think about it: solid white matter, frozen into perfect crystals, falling from above, and accumulating on the ground,
There is a lovely space of years when your children are adults but your grandchildren are not yet attuned to Christmas and its feast of presents. These are years when one can rise early in a quiet house, with late-twenties children still asleep and no little tots hungrily lusting at 5 a.m. for their Christmas stocking and the wonderful excess to come. One must use these hours wisely because they will not last. There is something almost holy about a...
Do you ever open the refrigerator on the morning after Thanksgiving and look with horror at what's left of your turkey, greasy and cold, wing joints piercing the aluminum foil you hastily wrapped it in at 10:30 p.m. after oh-so-many pieces of pie? That sad carcass seems to be screaming for attention and wants you to make it into something that will extend its brief shining life as the center of your holiday meal. This moment always fills me with...
I have just finished steaming a handful of fingerlings, those miniature banana-shaped potatoes that are so golden, tender, and creamy as to need only a smidgeon of olive oil to complete their journey to my table. Spuds. I love 'em, and I'm not alone. We are a nation of potato eaters: baked, boiled, mashed, souffléd, scalloped, transformed into salad, browned and crispy and nestled around our roasted meats, made into chips, pan fried, home fried, and most especially French fried.
Very few houses nowadays have a proper pantry. You know the kind: a little separate room with shelving and drawers where you store staples and some dishware. The word pantry is derived from the French word for bread, pain, and was originally called a paneterie, the place where bread was stored. In today's world, a pantry is a catchall word that simply means the place in our kitchen where we store staples. And the word staples comes from the old...
Hornworms have eaten all my tomato plants. They are fat and green, and their “horns” look like little thorns that protrude from the end of their bodies. They are the same color as the plants, and I did not notice them until they had managed to decimate entire branches, all the leaves and most of the fruit. It was very, very sad. The worms I found on my tomatoes had rows of what looked like tiny rice kernels on their...
