As Easter fast approaches I get excited at the prospect of having a houseful of friends and family that have been fasting for the last 30 hours that I can lovingly overfeed!
When my Grandmother came to America in 1914, all her recipes were stored in her head. As she settled in a small town in Maine, she had a tin knocker make a set of baking pans for her food. I was lucky enough to have these handed down and we fill them every Easter just as she did.
My sister and I cook non-stop for 2 days, then we start decorating the house. The olives need marinating, the eggs have to be dyed and polished, the cookies need to be baked and dusted with confectionary sugar, the lamb butterflied and bathed in wine and herbs. We are busier than santa’s workshop!
There are many stories regarding the history of Hot Cross Buns. One interesting one comes from Alan Davidson's "The Oxford Companion to Food". He says that the Saxon invaders in Britain chomped on buns adorned with impressions of crosses in honor of the pagan goddess of light, Eostre, from whom the name Easter is derived.
Dear SOS: Whenever I get out to L.A., I have to stop at Auntie
Em's Kitchen in Eagle Rock for a cupcake fix -- specifically, for a
coconut cupcake with coconut cream cheese frosting. It's a miracle of a
baked good. Do you think you could get the recipe for a Bostonite who's
stuck on the East Coast dreaming of this confection?
As Spring slowly arrives in Maine and the snow stubbornly retreats, I push back the compost covering my rhubarb patch that has been growing for as long as I can remember. The day is sunny and kinda’ warm, what that means around here is, the mid fifties.