All Purls. No Swine.
I have always loved Shrove Tuesday--Fat Tuesday--Mardi Gras. There are no carnivals here at Chateau Right. (other than the general joyous mayhem that always transpires when out for a walk with two very large and energetic dogs, or the daily crowing and self-congratulatory strutting about of Chinggis the rooster), but, all my life, every Shrove… Continue reading A Shrove Tuesday Miscellany
Well, that was fun. I've just returned from a day in Pittsburgh with friends, and lunch at the African Cuisine Restaurant in the Squirrel Hill section of the city. It's a small, informal, place featuring Nigerian food, the first of its kind in the Steel City, and which opened in March 2021, when things were… Continue reading Restaurant Review: African Cuisine in Pittsburgh, PA
I've not made any secret, over the years, of the fact that I love Thai food. Or of the marvelous opportunity--almost five years ago now--that I enjoyed an actual cooking class in actual Thailand. But I sometimes suffer the consequences of living in the northeastern United States, far away from some of those luscious and… Continue reading Thai Basil Hack
The word "for" is not a pronoun. That's a fruitcake. Herewith, my dad's much-loved recipe for mince pies--one which I have shared many times, both online and in-person--from the Farmhouse Fare cookbook: Plum Mincemeat 4 lbs plums 2 lemons 1 cup water 8 large cooking apples 4 oz currants 4 oz raisins 4 oz sultanas… Continue reading Post #582
I don’t really like olives all that much. But I adore the idea of olives. And olive groves. And the Mediterranean. The stories by Peter Mayle and Carol Drinkwater. The presence of olive trees, olive oil, olive wood, and of course “olive branches” in our mythological, literary and cultural traditions. And the history of an ancient industry that has… Continue reading Food and Drink Post: Olive Me
It's been exactly four years since a day I remember with great affection, the day on which my friend and I attended a full-day cooking school in Chiang Rai, Thailand and--with a lot of effort, hard work, and a great sense of fun--made some of the loveliest and most delicious food I've ever eaten. A… Continue reading Suwanee’s Cooking School, Chiang Rai, Thailand: Revisited
For this Good Friday, a post from days of yore. The buns are in the oven as we speak. I'm trying a different recipe, one from Mary Berry, this year. I'll report back! Hot Cross Buns! A Good Friday tradition I don’t always adhere to but which, for many reasons, this year I thought I… Continue reading “One a penny, two a penny…Hot Cross Buns!”
https://youtu.be/dgHolwEkcoI I've always liked quiche as the focal point of a meal, and ever since I acquired, through various nefarious means, a small flock of chickens, and--even in the winter--a seemingly endless supply of eggs, it's become an even more useful staple of my culinary art. My basic recipe starts with something called the Keto… Continue reading Quiche Me Once, and Quiche Me Twice….
At least, that's what I've always thought, having made, over the years, many of these delicious recipes: Easy Rice Bowl Mango Avocado Rice Bowl Chicken Rice Bowl Citrus Shrimp Rice Bowl Pork Meatball Rice Bowl Not to mention many of the Southeast Asian Rice Bowl standards such as (Indonesian) Nasi Goreng or (Thai) Khai Jiao.… Continue reading Rice Bowl? Delicious Stuff!
Green Papaya Salad. OMG, it's delicious. I've written before about my affinity for this lovely dish, something I first discovered in Chiang Rai, Thailand, in a tiny, hole-in-the-wall establishment run by aged crones: I've been searching it out ever since, on this side of the pond, with varying degrees of success. So far, Maenam Thai… Continue reading Som Tun! ส้มตำไทย