Foodlore Library
The other day, a friend of mine lamented that he wished we still lived in a world where people bartered and traded for things. Food for labor, labor for food, or food for food, etc. It's true most of us go to the grocery store and pay money to buy something that's been packaged and shipped across the country, but in parts of the world, the system of bartering and trading is still alive and well.
This fall, my roommate and I decided to harvest prickly pear fruit and make syrup. October is one of the best times to hike in the desert. It's cooler out and the trees in the valley are a kaleidoscope of fall colors.
Here's the location of the pricky pears we collected.
Here's one of the fruits I plucked from the cacti.
It's out, my secret love is really a Breton pastry from a bakery called Les Madeleines in Salt Lake City. The Kouing-Aman is a study in opposites: crunchy, chewy; dense, light; caramelly sweet and salty- easy on the eye and delicious in the mouth! Romina Rasmussen created this pastry and says it was an “overnight success.” She started making the goodie (bringing it to hungry Utahns) after admiring its beauty in a magazine article. www.les-madeleines.com
(This story is written by my friend Penny about her adventures in motherhood and cooking while living on a ranch in Montana.)
I come from a long line of cookbook collectors. My mother hordes collections of recipes for vegan casseroles and impossibly complex bread recipes, while I prefer tomes filled with creative soups and classic Italian sauces. My grandmother, however, takes collecting to a whole new level. Reorganizing her bookshelves not long ago, I discovered no less than six editions of The Joy of Cooking, most of them with cracked bindings and food-splattered pages, evidence of years of good use in her steamy, yellow-walled kitchen.
I must admit, I've had a melancholy spring. The last few weeks I've felt a little like this:
Here's some photos of sharing Easter with my brother, sister-in-law and their 5 boys this year!
Watch out for the Easter Bunny monsters... these monsters will eat your Easter Bunnies every time.
Kids at Easter
One of my saving graces while living in downtown Salt Lake City was my proximity to a gem of a specialty food market called Tony Caputo's. (www.caputosdeli.com) While living in Salt Lake City a few years ago, I headed down to Caputo's as often as occassion would permit. It was my little food oasis; my break from enduring endless days breathing in the city's chemical-laden air (what Salt Lakers call "the inversion") and my reward for having spent too long wandering bewildered and hanging onto a metal cart in the aisles of one of the city's many overpopulated, gaudy, superstores full of packaged industrial foods (which did little for my appetite).
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