Medieval Cooking

I suffered from what most women of my generation suffer from; we don’t know how to cook because we didn’t learn from our moms. The foods that our great-grandparents, or grandparents, and our parents cooked is not being held onto and those food traditions are slowly vanishing.
Food and culture are hopelessly intertwined and as [...]

Eating responsibly should include some thought towards waste. What is more wasteful than only eating bits and pieces of an animal that has been slaughtered on our behalf? There is a new movement towards nose-to-tail eating that is gaining steam in the environment of American frugal-chic. It wastes nothing and offal [...]

I’d been thinking about raising chickens, but had resigned myself to doing something about it next year to give myself time to build a coop, etc. Earlier this week, a friend was informed that she could no longer keep her chickens, so she contacted me to tell me that she was willing to hand [...]

It is traditional to name your starters. This one is named Phred.
Phred is in a jar that I have marked with Sharpie (it washes off with soap, but after dry doesn’t wipe off with your fingers) to keep a record of when and what I’ve fed him. I even included my top three [...]

This was the main course for dinner this evening.
2 small yams, diced into 1/4″ cubes
3 small Idaho potatoes, diced into 1/4″ cubes
1 1/2 c fresh broccoli, cut into florets, cut small (spoon sized)
1 1/2 quarts vegetable broth
1 small onion, diced fine
a splash of canola oil
pepper to taste
optional ingredient: sour cream
optional ingredient: bacon, chopped fine
optional ingredient: [...]

A few weeks ago, my daughter and I started our seedlings. After a few casualties to our cats, I finally was fed up enough to build a greenhouse made entirely of materials that I found around the house. The main structure is made up of corrugated cardboard from cases of soda water and [...]

First, a confession: I am terrified of almond cheese and almond butter. Not the idea of it as much as the execution. The recipes that I’ve seen in primary sources are of the sort that says:

“Take a half pound of almonds and rose water and sugar and clarified butter. And set it in [...]

The nominees are all authors who wrote books in English in 2008.
AMERICAN COOKING
Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited
by Arthur Schwartz (Ten Speed Press)
Cooking Up a Storm: Recipes Lost and Found from The Times-Picayune of
New Orleans
Edited by: Marcelle Bienvenu and Judy Walker (Chronicle Books)
Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern [...]

This weekend my daughter and I chose what we would grow in our garden this summer. As I am one of the folks caught up in Layoff 2009, we are growing a much larger garden than we have previously planned. Honestly, I’m over my head, but learning quickly.
The increase in what we grow [...]

Yes, you read that right.
Food Deserts: A food desert is a district with little or no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet, but often served by plenty of fast food restaurants. (Wikipedia, 2009)
Since “access” is defined in a number of ways, including a lack of knowledge about how to turn ingredients into [...]