Tart Times I think by now, it’s fair to assume I’m obsessed by tarts. Summer is here, and that means tomatoes. I was determined to create a Tomato Bechamel Tart. It’s late spring, practically summer, and the luscious, coveted Heirloom Tomato isn’t quite ready yet, …
If you go looking for treasure long enough, deep enough, and carefully enough, you will find it. Such are the tiny beauties known as Manti in Turkish cuisine. They are small (quite small) purse shaped dumplings filled with a simple something–ours were beef, onion, parsley, …
I’ve been dying to make a rustic savory tart using fruit for the longest time. And the time is now. I fell in love with all tarts sweet and savory awhile back, when I acquired my mom’s large fluted tart pan. I recently added a …
The man in my life and in our home is an American Turk. He grew up with a Turkish father in Astoria, Queens, which is where my mother calls home too. After years there, in Long Island, and California, he is still very Turkish, also …
Anniversary in Quarantine I talk about my Croatian father a lot on this blog. Though it is my mother who influenced my obsessive nature, my recipe collecting, my inability to cook anything less than a full pot size meal, and my drive towards baking, my …
A Companion Essay to Cevapcici Feast Day By Maryana Lucia Vestic Cevapcici recipes found here Outskirts The crumbling facade of the apartment block stood idle under the pale Bosnian morning. No shadows existed, whether made by the Igman mountain, the remaining scorched birch trees, or …
Amnesia I have no memory of eating Cevapcici as a child. Wait, I’m moving too fast. For those who do not know, Cevapcici (also called Cevapci and Cevapi–Croatians sometimes like to add the ‘ci’ in the hopes of sounding more Italian) finds its history, as …
Queen of Tarts I should have known I would fall in love with my tart pan. Being an anglophile, I always loved the term “tart” rather than other, less colorful and more hardcore words describing a vivacious lady. Like many things, the term’s meaning varies, …
A Journey Into Time As I crack open the window in the pentagon shaped living room, the room that feels like a cabin on a ship perched high in the trees above the street, I feel cold, but no wind. There is a soft, periwinkle …
A Christmas Eve Tradition Christmas Eve in Westchester, 1985. It was our last Christmas in the only home I had ever known in life and childhood, the big California style house on the hill, the one with modern additions thanks to my Croatian born father’s …