Author: Barbara

Creasy greens! And a wild violet and creasy spring salad.

If you look down, Spring has arrived in our mountains. If you look up, Spring looks like it’s a million years away. But when the creasy greens start popping up in fields and roadside stands here in Western NC (usually mid March), eating officially gets pretty darned exciting. In case you don’t know these slightly […]

I baked you a pi for your birthday, Albert Einstein!

It’s 3.14. Pi Day. And Einstein’s birthday. And we’ll be celebrating around here shortly. This is a re-post from 2013, because this year’s pie is still in the mixing bowl, and-anyway, I already used up all my vast physics knowledge last year.  Ya’ll have a great pi day! OK, I […]

Goofy St. Nik holiday breads

It’s beatnik Santa bread time. What started out two years ago as a wholesome gathering of friends just celebrating the German tradition of making St. Nicholas Day breads, has turned into an annual holiday doughboy mutiny. While we appreciate the European custom of making Santa-shaped sweet breads that are gifted to children to pay […]

Muscadine merriment + a perky salad for your Thanksgiving table

I know it might be too late now for Muscadines since it was a whopping 19 degrees outside our Asheville door this morning. But this celebrated southern native grape keeps well when refrigerated, and as of Monday, growers at the WNC farmer’s market still had some baskets stashed away. If you live around the Asheville area, you really […]