home eco-nomics for the rest of us
One perfect peach, a pint of cream, and a craving after comfort – a pudding is born. If there’s one thing that really gets Mr. Hollywood’s goat around this time of year, it’s that chipper “summer’s almost over” refrain he hears from young parents sending […]
Okra is way too easy to hate, which isn’t fair because there’s so much to love! It says “summertime” almost as ringingly as the tomato sandwich. But it’s okra’s slime that turns people off. I get it. And I’ve been one of those people. Then […]
It took moving to the South for me to appreciate the beauty of a proper tomato sandwich. Not that we didn’t get beautiful, juicy tomatoes of every conceivable variety in Minnesota. It’s just – who would name with pride such a simple thing? A sandwich […]
(to accompany this essay also on Huffington Post): Sometimes a dish of beans and rice is just the thing, the just thing. I live in Charlottesville, plenty famous enough, thank you very much, without the white supremacist rally mid-August that catapulted our town into national news. […]
I wasn’t planning to make this, or any summer squash thing for that matter, but plans seldom affect what I actually end up doing. I’d gone to a small, off-day farmers market up the road from our place to pick up (or so I thought) […]
What’s a person to do with whey, that pastel yellow liquid left over from making (yes-you-can!) blissfully delicious fresh ricotta cheese? I’ve just discovered the joys (read: ease) of making my own ricotta cheese. (Check out how you can avoid the disposable plastic tub and […]
It’s so easy to make your own ricotta cheese, and amazingly delicious, too that I can’t imagine ever again buying the plastic tub. There are a million things you can make with it to eat straightaway (smear on toast, sprinkle with cinnamon, add fruit); or […]
Imagine. August 12, 2017. Charlottesville, Virginia. Imagine with me an alternative day. Early morning. The dawning sun eases its light down Water Street, the pedestrian Mall, Market Street. It’s quiet, as usual. But something happened overnight. Where there had been none before, banners sweep across […]