by jodi ~ January 15, 2010
Pastéis de nata (Portuguese custard tarts)
I say “natas”; you say “custard tarts.” We’re both right and they’re one of the simplest, most delicious pastries around. You’ll find a little history behind this popular sweet and tasting notes on natas from some Toronto bakeries in my “A Tart for All-Comers” piece published over at Continue reading ...
by jodi ~ January 11, 2010
Celebrating Grandma and Grandpa’s birthdays, Christmas 2009
This December, my grandparents turned 81 (grandma, on December 21) and 87 (grandpa, on December 24). On Christmas Day, when we sang the birthday song and watched them together blow out the candles on their banana-chocolate-walnut chiffon cake — my grandmother’s recipe, my uncle, the baker, told us — they were barely two weeks ...
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by jodi ~ September 18, 2009
by jodi ~ July 15, 2009
Lime tart with fresh raspberries
I know. I know! It’s yet another dessert post.
I’m just as surprised as you are, as I’ll gladly side with savoury over sweet every single time. But what can I say? There are worse things in which to revel than sweets, and revelling in them I have been indeed if my recent food ...
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by jodi ~ May 26, 2009
Coffee blondies
I would make a terrible Got Milk? poster girl.
It wasn’t always this way. For most of my adult life I bought, and consumed, at least a litre of milk every week: I was a dunker of all manner of cookies, a lover of cereal well soaked, a tippler of tall cold ones. But then something happened. I moved in ...
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by jodi ~ May 23, 2009
Pizza with spring toppings and fontina
I choose to view the last year and eight months as a lesson in simplicity, in determining life’s essentials from its frills. As it happens, having a full-sized oven is a frill, but oh — how much sweeter culinary life is when you have one at your disposal.
You might remember that back in March I ...
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by jodi ~ April 30, 2009
Lemon loaf
I can tell you precisely when I started to cook — not just help in the kitchen, but do full-fledged home cheffing pretty much on my own. It was Summer 1990, as recorded in Candles and Parsley, a entertaining record book I got as a gift and starting filling in with meticulously detailed dinner-party notes not long after receiving ...
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by jodi ~ March 21, 2009
An old friend: lemon meringue pie
Lemon meringue pie and I go way back.
I have filmy, fragile memories of my mom making it in the kitchen of the house I lived in until I was eight. In those days there was Tenderflake lard for the crust, Shirriff mix for the filling, and after being amazed every single time that clear, viscous ...
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by jodi ~ February 24, 2009
Raspberry punchkie (paczki), Polish fruit-filled doughnuts
Jam-filled doughnuts, pancakes, sweet dumplings, king cakes. What do they have in common? You bakers out there will know that they all contain a few simple, basic ingredients: eggs, milk, butter, sugar. And those simple — yet rich — ingredients just happen to be forbidden during Lent. Enter Fat ...
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by jodi ~ February 13, 2009
Gingerbread cupcakes with lemon cream-cheese frosting
Today’s my birthday, and I’m turning thirty-six. I’m now closer to being forty than I am to being thirty. How did that happen?
Cake is good on birthdays, and I plan to have some at one of the little cafés on main street in Peterborough, where Michael and I are heading for a ...
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