This year has been riddled with errors: a lot of failed cakes, muffins, pies, and dinner dishes. So why not put some booze in a traditional Rosh Hashanah dish?
Inspired by Buzzfeed’s 25 Delicious Ways to Use Matzoh, I am running full speed ahead into Pesach. I have lists of vegan, Pesach-friendly recipes lining my cubicle at work and shopping lists ready that I’ve prepped already. Strawberry Rhubarb. Dark Chocolate Brei. Rosemary Crepes. Cookies Galore, spiced, promising to be fluffy. I am resolved to do my due diligence, deliciously.
“I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world’s otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.” – Mary Oliver
By my bedside at any given time, I have two or three books on rotation. Currently one of those books is Russ Parsons’ How to Pick a Peach. The main idea is simple, but often overlooked: good food comes from good ingredients. In today’s world, how many of us know to store an onion, or a potato, a peach, or a pear? Do we know when fruits ripen, or even when they are in season? Can we tell when they are not, now that strawberries are always a bold, eye-popping red and peaches always a fuzzy pink? And even if the ingredient is good, which variety of pear is the best? Do we know how to core that pear? Poach it?