We are skipping the turkey this year. Instead of spending my time basting and stuffing, I want to give a shout-out to the local farmers and producers who have filled our table with such wonderful foods this year.
When I moved to rural northeast Pennsylvania in 2001, it was a real culture shock. Yes, the culture shock did not happen when I moved from Germany to New York City three years prior. It happened when I moved from the city to the country. It was not only because living on a rural hilltop and telecommuting is an isolated and remote lifestyle, it was also because I realized that my image of country life was a bucolic fantasy. Continue reading
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It’s intriguing how the scent of certain foods can transport you back in time and space. For me, oranges have that power, both the blossoms and the fruit. They bring back vivid memories of the little time I got to spend with my 
With the exception of breads, there are very few breakfast recipes on this blog. The simple reason is that I don’t eat breakfast. Yes, I know, it’s a bad habit but the fact is that I cannot stomach to eat anything early in the morning. My breakfast consists of a large mug of coffee with lots of hot frothed milk, basically an oversized cappuccino. Other people’s breakfast then becomes my lunch. 
In the past few months I have thought a lot about the expression, “as American as apple pie.” Whether I was tossing and turning in bed during many sleepless nights, driving past homes with the American flag and an occasional Confederate flag, whether I was standing at the stove until late at night canning and preserving the harvest from my garden, or angrily digging up the soil and pulling weeds until I almost dropped in an attempt to vent and get away from too much news intake – it all seemed to be boiling down to one question: What is American? 