Archive for the 'holidays' Category
Raspberry Jam Tart
December 26th, 2011by Caroline For a family that cooks and cares about food as much as we do, it was unsettling to face our lack of Christmas dinner traditions. I could happily sit down to a meal of Tony’s grandmother’s lemon-parsley stuffing, Tony’s porcini mushroom gravy (lately infused with his late father’s 1981 port), and some cranberry [...]
Halloween
November 1st, 2011by Lisa Aside from the costumes and the chocolate, we have a one rock solid Halloween tradition. Every year, we pick popcorn at Ardenwood Farm, and then the kids package it in treat bags, with a few candy corn & directions for drying and popping. It’s a lot of corn to pick and carry, and [...]
Kids Breakfast, Tahoe 2012
July 10th, 2011by Lisa There will never be a better meal.
Nigella’s Lemon Linguine
April 28th, 2011by Caroline I don’t know when I began needing so much lemon in Easter dinner, but this year it worked its way into almost every dish I made for my family, parents, and brothers on Easter day: lemon fettucine, lemon roasted asparagus, and a lemon cheesecake for dessert; only the peas (grown by my dad) [...]
Maple Easter Candy
April 22nd, 2011by Caroline Every year, I hope that maybe our Easter trip to my parents’ home in Connecticut will line up with sugar season, that window every New England spring when the temperatures sink below freezing at night but rise into the 40s during the day, with enough sun to warm the trees and encourage the [...]
Valentine’s Hearts
February 11th, 2011by Caroline In years past, I have made heart-shaped chocolate sandwich cookies, I have made heart-shaped brownie ice cream sandwiches, and even homemade Ring Dings (or Ding Dongs, depending on whether your family bought Hostess or Drake’s Cakes). Last year, apparently not so much in the mood for sweets, I made a bright pink beet [...]
A Sparkling New Year
January 3rd, 2011by Caroline Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks is one of the few food blogs I read regularly: the writing is wonderful, the recipes are terrific, the photography is gorgeous. Even better, my sister and several friends read the blog, too; they often try out the recipes before I can get to them and report back with [...]
Iced Ginger Cookies
December 29th, 2010by Caroline I spent an hour today going through my stuffed binders of torn-out magazine recipes, assembling a menu for our annual New Year’s Day party. This cookie recipe is one I found in Sunset magazine four years ago and yet had never tried. Now it’s going to be a regular part of our holiday [...]
A Christmas Cocktail
December 22nd, 2010by Caroline If you type the word “cocktails” in the search box up to the right there, you’ll find about a dozen posts and recipes, mostly by Lisa, though my family makes good use of cocktail hour ourselves. This time of year, while most folks are stirring up jugs of eggnog, Lisa and I are [...]
More Light
December 7th, 2010By Lisa Unknown to us, Caroline & I have the same advent wreath tradition. We light ours, made with greens from the Redwood tree in our backyard and 3 tealights (3 violet, one rose for Gaudete (orRejoice!) Sunday) every night during this season. So I will leave you with just this image and a [...]