Category: Journal of an Island Kitchen

Remember when we thought eggs were bad for us, high in cholesterol, eat one a week, think of them as a food equivalent of a hand grenade? Remember Egg Beaters? Eggs are now OK again. Remember the Fear of Fat era, when a package of watercress I bought had the… SEE MORE

Hot muggy weather is hell on buttercream. Still, a lot of island-destination weddings and other grand events are planned for summer. Special cakes to mark nuptials, anniversaries, and birthdays, carefully constructed, decorated and set out to be admired before being carved up for consumption, are so vulnerable this time of… SEE MORE

As an experiment one year, I vowed not to buy, cook, or eat any out-of-season vegetables. No eggplant in December. No asparagus in January. No broccoli in March. Sort of eating by pre-Civil War era standards. (You’d be surprised how quickly fresh produce found its way north after the hostilities… SEE MORE

In the kitchen, on the floor next to the cookstove, Yandro finds his food. Before this pale orange, furry little being came here to live, he sat on a stool at a dining table, on which he was allowed to put his front paws, and only his front paws, to… SEE MORE

Last weekend we stacked firewood in the barn, collecting and piling small pieces separately for kindling. Over the 30-plus years I’ve cooked on a wood burning kitchen stove, I’ve gotten mighty fussy about firewood, and can tell just by looking at a stick whether it will fit the kitchen stove… SEE MORE