The magnificent apple tree…of the rose family…offers us so much. Shade. Oxygen. Fruit for enjoying fresh, cooked, canned, juiced, or fermented (cider, cizer, vinegar, etc). Inner bark, flowers, and leaves for plant medicine (cooling, astringent, and supporting us with assimilation of the food we eat). Pectin. Quercetin. Beauty. Morel mushrooms love to appear around old … Continue reading
Tagged with traditional food ways …
Southern New Years Tradition: Hoppin’ John, Greens & Cornbread
I appreciate how my mother gently reminds me each year of our family’s (well, and many, many other Southern folk’s) tradition of eating black eyed peas, cornbread, and boiled greens on new year’s day. This meal is eaten to bring luck, prosperity, and health! Pork is used in the black eyed peas/hoppin’ john dish and … Continue reading
Exploring Acorns, Starch Noodles
Some of you may remember my post on making pinole energy cakes with acorn flour. This fall, with the arrival of acorn harvesting season, I decided to finally try making the acorn starch noodles I had learned about in a foraging group on Facebook. Pictured above is the outcome of my SECOND attempt at making … Continue reading
Mallow Mallow and more Mallow Soup
Really, though. What has taken me so long to learn about molokhia (mulukhiyyeh) soup??? It’s a soup-like dish made in Egypt, Lebanon, etc… A recent post in a foraging group led me on an adventure with our local, invasive cheesewheel mallow plant (Malva parviflora or Malva neglecta). Although the mallow used in molokhia soup is … Continue reading
Pumpkin Spice Marrow Custard
It is that time of year. Imbolc. The mid-point between Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox of the Old Celtic Wheel of the Year. It’s at this time that eggs are starting to be laid. Eggs of all kinds. Wombs are full. Nature is preparing for birth. Years ago, in Mississippi, I cooked and prepared … Continue reading
Rootin-tootin Fermented Radishes
Our favorite veggie ferment used to be sauerkraut. THEN then THEN we discovered fermented radishes. Everything changed. They are easy to chew. Sour. They have a subtle spice to them. Well. And, they are pink. My three year old LOVES them. The only thing is…they smell like baby diapers. I know. Strange. This ferment smells … Continue reading
Pinole Energy Cakes
A wee bit of kitchen witchery happened tonight. Thought I’d share. So, what is pinole? As I understand it, the word pinole arrived in California with the early Spanish colonizers who had been in Central America before arriving here. They called the local toasted seed foods they experienced with First Peoples of North America, pinole…as … Continue reading
Super Seed Bars
Cooking and kitchen witchery, to me, are an endless, unraveling narrative…of places I have been…people I have known…and flavors I have explored. Take this recipe as an example… A friend of mine, from my San Francisco days, gave me this recipe to try. I was on my way to the desert to camp and needed … Continue reading
When I Fell in Love with Dosa and Idli
In 2006 I traveled to Tamil Nadu, a region in South India, to visit the long-time social experiment, Auroville. Back in the 50s a French woman named, the Mother, and Pondicherry native, Sri Aurobindo, created a formula for harmonious living…they launched that vision in the real time with an intentional community. When I visited Auroville, … Continue reading
Donna’s Beets with Walnut Chutney
A little taste of some of my pandemic cooking (hope you all are well). Not survival food, but food for the soul. Very nostalgic making this one. Beets with walnut chutney. This was one of my favorite dishes that they chef (Donna) would make at Southern Dharma Retreat Center when I worked there as Retreat … Continue reading
