Apple Cider Syrup + Jam

The other day, our friends at Essex Farm laid a windfall of apple cider on us: pure liquid apple with pleasingly earthy undertones of seeds and stem, or perhaps a wooden cider mill. It was beautiful stuff but too much to consume before it would start fermenting. How to capture that “apple” for the rest of…

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Rhubarb Season: A Fast Delish Stew, and more…

When Essex Farm, my sensational CSA, delivered a fat bundle of rhubarb stalks in the midst of a crazy-busy week,  I employed my super fast, super simple rhubarb recipe. It results in a rustic, velvety rhubarb stew that is divine as is with heavy cream, creme fraiche, ice cream or yogurt; sandwiched between Foolproof Cream Biscuits with…

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Maria Robledo: Still-Lifes While Making Soup

Every once in a while, photographer Maria Robledo emails images she has made in-the-moment, in response to whatever was going on around her. They are invariably startling and illuminating; Maria sees like no one we know. Her way has opened our eyes over the years. This time, she showed us the marvels of root vegetables. While she was cutting the vegetables for soup (recipe to follow), she turned them into little still-lives with an unexpected whimsy.

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Oven Dried Tomato Candy

Recently we received a trove of small plum tomatoes which are in abundance right now. Since we don’t have the energy or space to can the tomatoes, we experimented with drying them in our ancient restaurant stove whose pilot lit oven is a constant 150′. We often dry our kale chips this way, and in the past have done sliced apples and pears. Why not tomatoes? Our experiments were a success. Here’s what we did.

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