jessicaglasscoe

I look forward to breakfast on the weekend, because Dustin and I will either head to Ollie’s for a scone, to the Bagel Station for egg and cheese bagels on our way to the farmer’s market, or we’ll whip up something special at home. I’m usually the one doing the whipping, but that suits me just fine.

I had never considered waffles anything more than a special occasion breakfast, say, for Christmas morning. Therefore, I’ve seen relatively few waffles on my breakfast plate throughout the years. No doubt this is due to the fact that waffles require equipment – equipment that most college students lack, and few people consider to be a necessity in their kitchen. I however, dreamt of a waffle iron for quite some time before we were gifted one for our wedding, and now, waffles are one of our favorite ways to celebrate the weekend.

When I come home from the farmer’s market, toting a basket of fruit, the inevitable chain of events that follows goes something like this: I place the fruit on the counter, walk over to my recipe binders to grab the blue dessert binder, then go stand in front of my cookbook cabinet, scanning titles, mentally flipping the pages I know so well, grab a few books for inspiration, then plop myself on the couch, preferrably with a cup of coffee in hand, to decide what fate my little fruits will meet.

Once again, I find myself posting about my memories of Spanish Food. How strange, since I rarely find myself thinking of the time I spent in Spain. My time in Spain has clearly embedded itself in me through culinary means, which is laughable, since upon my return home from Spain, I lamented to friends and family alike that the food in Spain was pretty boring.

I have been struggling over the past year to become a better bread-baker. I am trying to follow my mom’s lead, and until this past weekend, I was beginning to think I hadn’t inherited her gene for taming and transforming yeast. My breads always turned out leaden, never rising quite high enough.

My family sat down to dinner together every night, and many of those meals included homemade bread in some form. Two of our family favorites were my mom’s soft white bread, swirled with cinnamon and sugar, and her oatmeal bread. I was always partial to the oatmeal bread, because although it was soft, it also had substance, and held up well to a good toasting, and topping of butter and plenty of jam.

If you love to cook, Sundays are the most anticipated day of the week. A full day to prep, season, and saute away! I love to plan for the week on Sundays, sometimes preparing soups to eat for the week, or just cleaning out the fridge and making the kitchen sparkle, so that when I get home from work, it’s a pleasure to spend time in the kitchen preparing dinner.

To me, there is nothing better suited for Sunday morning breakfast than eggs. Our eggs are delivered, bi-weekly, by my mother-in-law, and they come straight from the farm, where she and Tyler, my nephew, faithfully gather them every day. The yolks are a beautiful golden yellow color, and come in all shades of light greens, blues and pinks.

As I was contemplating how to approach this post today, I started wondering at the place that mole has in Mexican cooking. It seems interesting that a culture which produces such wonderfully simple food should come up with a sauce which is has a famously long list of ingredients. So, curiosity leading the way, I pulled out my trusty Food Lover’s Companion, which gave the following definition of mole…

The photograph of this dish in Martha Stewart was absolutely gorgeous, and I couldn’t wait to make it, but for whatever reason, I kept putting it off, pulling out the issue every once in awhile, then tucking it back away, saving it for some future date in which a fish stew would be the perfect thing to make. That day came on Saturday, and like usual, once I looked at the recipe and read through the steps, I realized how simple and quick this dish would be, despite how impressive it looks when plated up.

Last week I went to a cooking class which is held by two local women who’ve turned their passion for cooking into more than just a pastime. Holly and Lee have been teaching these classes in Holly’s home for about 5 years now, and have attracted a large and loyal following. There is a new class every 6 weeks, often with a new theme. Some themes are so popular that people demand a repeat, but usually the material is fresh. A newsletter goes out which announces the theme and lists the dishes that they will be preparing for the class. The theme last week was “Can’t Stand the Heat”, and the last class sounded too good for me to pass up.

I had read, over and over again, the praises of the Italian Prune Plum in magazines and in my most treasured dessert cookbooks, yet I had never tried one. When I came across them at the Farmer’s Market last year, I was delighted at their miniture size, and their blue-ish purple appearance. Truth be told, they didn’t taste all that different to me than say, a Santa Rosa, but I had faith in their superiority.