The Once and Future Apple Cake

The Once and Future Apple Cake is a cake with a story. It began with a little girl whose mother baked apple cakes, but then died when the girl was young. When the girl grew up, she searched and searched for an apple cake like her mother’s. Please read the story and recipe here. I can’t tell the story any better than it has already been told.

Chai

According to my friend who used to live in India, “chai” means tea and there are many kinds of chai – some of them are spiced. So, this is the way that I make spiced chai, but you can alter the spices to suit your tastes. Whole spices are the way to go since they have more flavor and won’t leave powder floating on your tea.

Tahini

I haven’t always known that sesame is a great flavor. I mean, when you only eat sesame seeds on hamburger buns and in granola bars, it’s hard to know what they taste like. Then I discovered that toasted sesame oil is a great addition to Thai food. Just recently I discovered how much I love sesame seeds ground up with olive oil and salt – in other words, tahini. When I was in college, tahini was just an ingredient for hummus that I didn’t include because it was too expensive.

Spicy Pickled Okra

I love the blog Homesick Texan because I am also a homesick Texan. Maybe I’m not as homesick as the author of the blog though because the last time I lived in Texas was when I was 8 years old. Still, I love a lot of Texas foods, so I enjoy reading that blog.

My grandmother used to grow okra in her garden in Kansas and I can remember helping her pick them. The plants were so tall! Now they’re still tall in my own garden, but not as tall as I remember them. They’re supposed to reach  6 feet!

Cilantro Sauce

I was listening to the Splendid Table podcast (the October 10, 2009 episode) last week. There was a guest, Martha Rose Shulman, talking about cilantro sauces. I was interested because we had so much cilantro in our garden and we’re going away for 2 weeks, so I needed ideas for using it quickly!