“Why do you keep eating bread and jam,” asked Father, “when you have a lovely egg?” “I like bread and jam,” said France, “because it does not slide off your spoon in a funny way.” - Russell Hoban, Bread and Jam for Frances Sometimes I feel a bit like Frances, eating bread and jam as much and as often as I do. ...
Pan dei Morti or Bread of the Dead Cookies
For much of the Western world, the cool, golden days of autumn mean Halloween, grinning jack o’ lanterns and pumpkin pie, tiny ghosts, goblins, and fairy princesses digging into paper bags heavy with candy and caramel popcorn balls or bobbing for apples amid the crunch of fallen leaves in shades of copper, amber, sage. For ...
Cocoa Molasses Chew Cookies
Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils. - Cyril Connolly I simply need some comfort today. We all do. This election has left me drained, emotionally and physically. I’m shaken to my very core, chilled to my bones, and every cliché and platitude in between. Battered and bruised. I mourn for ...
Chocolate Palets Bretons – Chocolate Butter Cookies from Brittany
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. - Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard's Egg Spring has finally arrived in Chinon. Wild winds, grey skies, spattering rain are interspersed with flashes of bright sunlight filtering through hazy skies and lighting up the courtyard, brushing against the windows and warming the breakfast room. ...
Black Currants and Lemon Cake
Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them. – Nancy Mitford I sit next to Jane comfortably and convivially at the white plastic picnic table in the shade of the overhang, a tangle of branches heaped upon the table. We each have a plastic ...