Weekend Meditation: On Rediscovering MFK Fisher
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My day job is really busy right now, with lots of last minute twists and turns on a project that was due over two weeks ago. I want to retreat to the kitchen and the simplicity of chopping carrots bu...
First, an update on the controversial Bake Sale Response post from last week. So far, and all the counting isn't done yet, the three-location, Bay Area bake sale that was held from 10am to 2pm yester...
No matter how tiny your droplet of help feels compared to the ocean of need, it's always better to do something rather than nothing at all. When the news of the earthquake in Haiti started to roll in...
Flexibility is not an easy attribute for many people, yet being a cook (and a host) often requires advanced coping skills to adjust to constantly changing and often challenging circumstances. If we d...
A farmers' market in the deepest of winter is a magical thing, a miracle almost. Here on the temperate west coast, we have the privilege and pleasure of fresh produce in our winter markets but even s...
Every weekend we bring you a meditation or reflection, a small piece that moves away from the strictly practical and into the mindful, the thoughtful, the inward. Dana has given us reflections on the ...
Winter Solstice 2009: December 21, 12:47 PM Eastern time Do you even notice the solstice? Does this time of year make you sleepy and sad, or full of energy and good cheer? Where will you be on the lo...
I'm paying an unexpected visit to my ancestral home in Wisconsin this week to take care of my mother who is recovering from surgery. It's been an interesting few days so far, what with various medical...
We all make mistakes. We also do bad, or at least not very helpful, things. We misread a situation, forget something important, say something stupid, follow an unwholesome impulse, act selfishly, ca...
Dear Reader: Forgive me. It's been a long, very full weekend. I ate quite well (several times, as a matter of fact), spent many hours with many good people and took part in several marvelous conver...
I want to start to take my time with the things I really love, to linger more. I want to stay longer at the dinner table, spinning stories with my friends, feeling the gravitational force of our frie...
“It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.” — Wendell Berry When I enjoy someone's cooking I invariably say to them "hey, let's cook together sometime!" I could ask...
We're deep into Autumn right now. The move from bright to dark has begun, a yearly non-negotiable event that has a profound influence on our lives. The extent that we can shift with it will become t...
Like many people, I have been a vegetarian for at least some part of my life. These days I choose to eat meat but on a very limited basis and I'm very particular about the conditions in which the ani...
Throughout time and many traditions, the household altar is often placed in the kitchen, the heart of the home and the place from which all activity flows. In some ways, the hearth itself is an altar...
When I read Sara Kate's review of the new Cuisinart Elite food processor last week, I felt the familiar tug of a well-known, mischievous spirit I call my raven nature. She appears whenever a bright, ...
When Gourmet was shuttered this week, the food blogs were ablaze with the news. Here in The Kitchn, we had a number of comments on our post. One in particular caught my eye. The commentor said that...
This week I had visit from my friend Lucy (much different than the visit from the other Lucy) to cook fresh Chinese food for lunch in my tiny kitchen. Lucy was a little late because she went to the f...
"Stress cannot exist in the presence of pie." -- David Mamet Once again, pie has inspired my weekend meditation! A few weeks ago, Omnivore Books on Food in San Francisco hosted a pie contest. Peop...
Eating is such a full-on sensory experience: taste, yes, but also smell and mouth-feel (texture) and even sound (the crunch of an apple, the slurp of soup.) And we all know the saying that we taste ...
A new Nigel Slater cookbook is releasing in the UK tomorrow. It's called Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch and it's the first volume in a two volume set about Nigel cooking from his garden. I...
Spell to Be Said Upon Departure by Jane Hirshfield What had come here to do having finished, shelves of the water lie flat. Copper the leaves of the doorsill, yellow and falling. Scarlet the bird th...
I've just finished assembling 36 pies which will be the alternative to a cake for the wedding of some very dear friends. I wasn't alone--we had a crew of 5 and a very efficient bride who organized a ...
It was one of those days in the kitchen today. An awkward tumble of Lucy Ricardo moments, one slapstick event following the other. Things kept burning, or dropping, or breaking. I picked up the rip...