• Food

    Keeping Calm in the Kitchen

    What makes cooking easier and more joyful for you? That’s the question Shauna, at Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, asked us to answer this month. More particularly, she posed her inquiry in…

  • Preserves

    The Fair and The Fowl

    It’s the Fourth of July and the Marin County Fair is going full Tilt-a-Whirl. This is the first year I’ve entered my jams and jellies in the fair, and my babies did…

  • Preserves

    Tayberry Jam

    Stewart said this jam is the best he’s ever had. He got so excited about it that he ran out the door to buy vanilla ice cream while the mixture was still…

  • Preserves

    Strawberry Lavender Jam

    The day after I met Julia, we joined Kate and Tigress for a Can Jammers’ picnic at Thompson-Finch Farm in Ancramdale, New York. We were quite a strawberry-picking crew: me from California,…

  • Preserves

    Meeting Julia

    If it weren’t for golden-hearted Julia at What Julia Ate, I would be home in my kitchen, pink-faced from steam, turning out jar after jar of jam with no one to talk…

  • Preserves

    Cherry Meyer Lemon Preserves

    It’s summer and the Can Jam is gaining momentum. There’s been a lot of excitement about this month’s ingredient, which is anything to do with “erries.” That means berries — and cherries,…

  • Travel

    Summer Camp

    We’ve been at camp this week, spending slow hours moving from one Adirondack chair to the next, keeping to the dappled shade, carrying along our novels, cold drinks, bug spray. This slanted…

  • Food, Words

    It Was Strawberry Cream Sherbet

    Here’s the truth about my Girl Scout career: It ended when I was nine years old, busted for shoplifting red licorice from the local grocery store while wearing my uniform. Before that,…

  • Travel

    Here Today: 5.19.2010

    I was supposed to fly home from New Mexico this morning, but I fell in love with Ghost Ranch and arranged to stay on. I had no idea the place was about…

  • Preserves

    Strawberry Rhubarb Orange Jam

    Did I fool you with my papier-mâché strawberry? Didn’t think so. But my berries were already mashed when I remembered I needed to take a photo with some rhubarb in it, so…

  • Travel

    First Thought, Best Thought: Santa Fe

    When I think of what I would have missed if I’d ignored The Dish n’ Spoon Café today. I was walking into Santa Fe along old Route 66 and I’d gotten myself…