Tasty Treat: Best Ever Chocolate Pudding

So many bloggers and food writers have written about pudding and pointed out that it's just as easy to make from scratch as from a packet. No lie, it's just as easy, it's tastier and it's better for you. However, I have yet to find a recipe that doesn't include cornstarch. Cornstarch drives me crazy because, in my humble opinion, it zaps flavor and can add a grittiness!

One Pot Meals: Simple Beef Stew

Now that we're well into Winter and Spring is months away, you might wonder how much of what I cook is local. Percentage-wise, around 65%. I'm still able to cook two to three almost entirely local meals a week. How is that possible? Well, I have to give kudos to my amazing farmers who sell their wares at the market every week no matter the weather. Even now, I can still buy meat, cheese, dairy and a few fruits and vegetables. Miraculously, there are even a couple stands that sell fresh lettuce! Granted, it's at a murderously high price right now, but still it's nice to see.

Tasty Treat: St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

On Tuesday I wrote to you about friendship and corn bread and the amazing Southern dinner party we attended. Today is all about the dessert I made. Among my friends, I am the dessert maker and I take this honorable role very seriously. I love dessert and I love baking and I especially love a crowd since baking extravagant desserts solely for the hubby and me is a recipe for obesity. Since the dinner was branded a Southern feast, I finally had an excuse to try the St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake Melissa Clark wrote about a few months back in the New York Times food section.

Tasty Sides: Southern Skillet Corn Bread

In college, one of my closest friends was always talking about these aunts and uncles that weren't actually related. I was totally confused since I grew up in a town where every relative lived within a five mile radius. There were so many of us, I didn't even know all of them and was often introduced to new cousins in random places such as the local Safeway or the country club.

Classic Meals: Coq au Vin

In every town in America there is probably a French bistro type restaurant. During my childhood, we frequented several of them throughout the DC area, which wasn't known for its food until well after I left. Le Refuge, Le Fanion, Bistrot Francais and Chez Andre all come to mind and they all had their high points. In particular was Chez Andre's filet mignon with bernaise sauce. However, at none of them was I ever tempted to try the classic but pervasive French dish, Coq au Vin. In fact, to me, Coq au Vin always seemed to me like some sort of dingy, dry and boring stewed junk for people without taste buds.

Healthy Meals: Salmon with Pickled Cucumbers

About a year before I became pregnant with baby girl, I discovered this amazing recipe for Salmon with Pickled Cucumbers. It was in Food & Wine magazine and it was such a simple recipe involving lots of ginger, lime juice and fish sauce, yum! It became the meal we ate whenever I was feeling like I'd eaten too much sugar or meat or butter, which was at least once a week. I also loved eating the cucumbers with brown rice for lunch. Somehow I felt lighter and springier and so much more productive.

Tasty Treat: Molasses Cookies

Like everyone else who lives in New York knows, the City Bakery makes the best cookies. While their chocolate chips are perhaps most beloved, I happen to think their molasses cookies are even better. Soft and chewy with a nice spicy, ginger-molasses bite, they are everything I want in a cookie. Unfortunately Maury Rubin hasn't revealed his cookie secrets so I have to try every other recipe in the world and tinker with them until one day maybe I'll hit pay-dirt.

It's Official!

So I just committed and bought the domain name for Almost Slowfood! You can now just type in www.almostslowfood.com rather than remembering all that blogspot.com nonsense.

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Tasty Sides: Sweet Potato Latkes

I didn't celebrate Hanukkah until I met the hubby and even then it was more of a hey! Let's go eat some latkes sort of affair. Of course, as a convent school girl from Virginia, I hadn't eaten latkes before and let me tell you, it's a crying shame it took me 22 years to try them. Of course, my sister in law is Belarussian and she use to make potato pancakes, which are incredible, but they aren't latkes. They're in their own category and I plan on begging for the recipe soon.