Reviving Traditional Foods
In the spring, our CSA brings us tender greens, young lettuces, small roots and huge bunches of herbs. As I picked through the farm’s choices of herbs that week: angelica, rose geranium, wormwood and mountain mint, I found myself taken by lovage. Its clean and almost antiseptic scent and celery-like undertones appealed to me. Not [...]
Preserved lemons enhance the cooking of North Africa with their pronounced saltiness and a sourness that is oddly mellowed, rather than enhanced, through fermentation. Even with no other ingredients but salt and lemon, preserved lemons take on other unique and complex flavor profiles that can become even mint-like over time and after proper fermentation. While [...]
When the snows recede and the forests open we like to venture out: reveling in the woods, fishing in lakes and streams and cooking over the campfire in rustic simplicity. And while it’s too cold to camp comfortably in our area for another month, we spent the last three weeks traveling from Colorado to the California [...]
No-knead sourdough bread, with crisp crust and its ballooning airy pockets in the crumb, is our favorite bread. And, recently, I’ve taken the time to return to the kitchen and my roots within traditional foods by embracing the pleasure breads, grains and pulses bring to the kitchen table in addition to all those lovely fats, [...]
To drink beet kvass is to taste the blood of the earth - sweet and salty with a mineral-rich undertone that speaks of the soil itself. Beet kvass is an acquired taste, much like other fermented foods whose characteristic sourness can offend tame palates. In spite of – or perhaps because of – its briny [...]
This recipe and post are contributed to Nourished Kitchen by Megan and Rose of Fig and Fauna. If you are interested in contributing to Nourished Kitchen, please read these guidelines. While every carrot, beet and potato still rest deep beneath the soil, perfectly ombre painted radishes emerge from the surface of the ground. They are [...]
Portable soup, a sort of homemade bouillon, sustained travelers before Cup O’ Noodles lined rest stop shelves and salty powdered bouillon cubes gave home cooks a short cut in making soups, stews and sauces. Modern cooks who seem to favor time saving packaged ingredients over more elaborate traditions have lost their taste for laborious culinary [...]
As kids we were always told that cookies were not an acceptable meal for breakfast. I’d like to know who made up that rule, and then tell them that I’m breaking it. I let my 18 month old eat these cookies for breakfast. They’re made with all natural ingredients so even though they’re cookies, I [...]
When spring inches its way forward, there is one recipe that I invariably prepare: asparagus soup. It’s creamy, but light, and rich with the grassy green herbaceous flavor of asparagus and leeks. Spring comes earlier to the region around us than it comes to the mountain itself. After a long and grey-white winter, when March [...]
Want an easy homemade yogurt? It doesn’t get easier than matsoni or the many other traditional yogurts that culture best at room temperature (think of villi, piima and filmjolk). Even if you’re so clumsy in the kitchen that you manage to burn water, you can make this simple, easy yogurt. Just whisk starter culture with [...]
Lovage Soup for Spring
Moroccan Preserved Lemons
campfire roast chicken with flowering onion and dill
Our Daily Bread: No-knead Sourdough
A Story of Recovery (and a Recipe for Grain-free Carrot Cupcakes with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting)
A Recipe for Beet Kvass: A Deeply Cleansing Tonic
What People Are Saying