Recipes

How to do Things with Apple Cider Syrup

Welcome to How to do Things Thursdays! If you were to walk into my kitchen in early November, what you would see is apples. The gnarly red ones that fall from the overgrown antique trees in our lives as well as about 80 pounds of magnificent GoldRush apples that I […]

How to do Things Thursdays

I don’t know about you, but it’s been on my mind to learn how to do more things for about …. oh…. maybe decades. At least since I lived here in this tumbledown farm in 1976. Well, actually, I did learn plenty of  things back then, but as you can […]

Speakin’ of Russia …

Political vitriolic nattering and scandals aside, I’ve been pondering Russia. Specifically what goes on in and comes out of some extraordinary or even perhaps ordinary Russian kitchens and bakeshops. Pies. Stunning pies and tartelettes. Come Sunday, I’ll be teaching a week of domestic and international pie-making at the John C. […]

On Matters of the Heart

    Valentines Day is nearly upon us and I can’t help but sing this enchanting holiday’s praises. I get that it can be a tough day for those who are lonely and have experienced loss, but it’s also the one time of the year when we somewhat restrained Americans […]

I got up early ….

Although the Blue Ridge Parkway national parkland adjoins our backyard in Asheville, we need to drive 20 minutes to catch a view like this. (As long as you get up at 5:30 am, that is.) It is the old-time mountain way to live down and view up.  To leave the […]

It’s Picnic Time!!!

I know for certain that it’s Picnic Time because we have 5,000 reminders of that fact in our warehouse. And also because, as you can see,  it’s always been Picnic Time with my family, who might whop me over the head for posting this picture. While I’ve been collecting antique […]