BasilandFig

These are the food memories I have of visiting Paris with my mom over a decade ago: nutella and banana crepes served in paper from sidewalk vendors; chocolate-filled buttery croissants for breakfast; and warm melty rounds of goat cheese on baguette slices with salad.

And of those three foods, it is the goat cheese toasts I [...]

Let’s play catch-up this week, shall we, by reading two (shortish) books that I last read several years ago and had all but forgotten.

Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen is a collection of 4 short stories, and every one of them will just about break your heart.

This was another book that was [...]

In no particular order:

The particular slant of afternoon sunlight through a window.

Not being a passenger in this car.

A spaceship-shaped

Pssst!

Hey, you!  Yes, you.

Do you wanna know a secret?  One of the secrets to delicious southern cooking?

Okay, lean in close and I’ll tell you.

The secret is…

MAYONNAISE!

Alright, maybe you shouldn’t have leaned in that close.

Now please try not to gag as you imagine obese SAM’s Club patrons filling their carts with gallon vats of Hellman’s.

I am [...]

I saw the movie before I read the book.

And probably I wouldn’t have ever read the book but there it was, staring out from the shelf as I skulked through the cookbook section of the library.

Now, having seen the movie, and not particularly loved the main character, I was not expecting to like [...]

I never thought I would say this but: I’m actually kind of glad the deer at my saffron crocus bulbs last year.

Because if they hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have ordered more, and if I hadn’t ordered more I would’ve never known that last year I had the wrong kind of crocus bulbs.

Well, that explains why [...]

I have one word, and one word only, to say about these biscuits.

That word is: dude.

No, wait, maybe I want that word to be butter!  Or garlic!  Or cheesy!

Duuuude.

I first had these ‘copycat’ biscuits in high school when my friend Heather made them.  And I have never forgotten how delicious and cheesy and garlicky they [...]

Since we’ve already established that you aren’t going to screw with your family’s sacred Thanksgiving menu (except for this brown-butter pecan pie; you should definitely make this since it’s okay to change your pie lineup) I’m not going to waste your time trying to convince you to make this.

Make it—or don’t—I don’t care.

I will tell [...]

For those of you out there who can count (yes, a whole threety-two of you) you may have noticed that there are 52 weeks in a year.

And, as you see above, I’ve read just 42 books so far.

Now I’m not entirely sure how many weeks are left in the year but [...]

Let’s say it’s a Sunday morning and you’re in the mood for biscuits.

Emboldened by your recent success with Bisquick biscuits (the secret: roll them out and cut them instead of doing drop biscuits) you decide that Yes, you can make biscuits from scratch.

Also?  You are out of Bisquick.  Also?  You are too lazy to change [...]