Here in Southern California, the weather is sunny and mild and things are blossoming all around. Sherry had planted a row of daffodils and tulips. Daffodils are out. Tulips are still sleeping in.
Sourdough croissants can’t be beat
Is there any thing better than croissant? Je crois que non! But there is, in my opinion, an improvement on the original recipe for the quintessential French pastry, and that is to use sourdough as the leavening agent. Patience may be a virtue, but it is an absolute necessity here. I’ve written before about the …
Sourdough and the sweet smell of success
You might have been watching from the sidelines for the past year, as friends, relatives and celebrities tweeted about their sourdough bread baking. We certainly sat out the fad. But then, we're not new to baking our own bread, or attempting to coax the all-natural yeast to life. Our previous attempts at sourdough, all in …
From gluten-free to free gluten
It was baking day today, and so I decided to experiment with both ends of the gluten spectrum, which means from gluten-free (no gluten) to free gluten (added gluten at no extra charge to you). I started with the now tried-and-true ciabatta bread. This recipe is about as simple as it gets: 3.25 cups of …
California, there I went
It was a bright, warm morning in January when we crossed the border from Yuma, Arizona into California. As we descended the mountain range, the vast, open, lush landscape of the Imperial Valley laid out before us. I was on a cross-country trip with my friend Arthur. The year was 1976. We had traversed from …
It’s a new day, a new administration, and a new recipe
It’s a blustery day here in Southern California. It’s also Inauguration Day for the United States. What better way to celebrate than to stay out of the wind and bake up a storm while glancing at the swearing in of our new president? On today’s menu: granola bars and saltine crackers. For the granola bars, …
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For the love of art: Meet this creative couple
Collaboration in the world of visual arts is a rarity. But allow me to introduce you to a couple that have created a perfect blend of their skills. And their collective output is consistently provocative, aesthetically enlightening, and just downright whimsical and entertaining. A frog for the garden. Water-based putty over wire mesh. Repurposed bolts, …
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Harvest time, planting time
It’s winter, officially, and that means time to harvest the citrus crops in the sunnier climes of the United States. We have a lemon tree and our first orange tree. We decided to pick the sweeter fruits early, to get a jump on the wildlife that, for some reason, seems entitled to take what they …
The road beckons
Two years ago today, we said good-bye to the Bay Area, the place we had called home for a long time. We set out on our World Tour, with a guitar, harmonica, microphone, laptop and two or three suitcases. In reality, this was the third leg of our tour. We had been to Asia (Hong …
Sherry & George 