Bakery Days

July 2010 . Sweetness & Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee

“…eating is an intimate activity. The desire for knowledge is behind the success of farmers’ markets, where you can meet producers face-to-face, ask questions, and get a sense of who they are, in the process of discovering what is on your doorstep.”

Some of my favorite passages comes from this book, Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee by Hattie Ellis. » Read the rest of this entry «

June 2010 . Tartine Cookbook

Another day. Another month. Another year. It’s been full of unexpected surprises and changes. I recently received this lovely cookbook from a very dear friend of mine. The companion piece to the wonderfully delicious bakery, Tartine Bakery, located on the corner of 18th and Guerrero Street in the Mission, each recipe contains beautiful drool-worthy photos, stories and recipes. » Read the rest of this entry «

March 2008 . Koln Chocolate Factory

I love chocolate. It’s sensual. It’s comforting. It’s happiness–packaged into itty-bitty mouth-watering pieces. Chocolate is a cherished sweet that I can never get tired of. Growing up, my family never had a lot of candy in the home and when I managed to get my little fingers wrapped around a piece of melted goodness, my parents–and grandparents–would always lecture  me, telling me that my teeth would fall out if I ate too many. Welp, fast forward to today, and I’ve still got my full set of teeth, so that little scare tactic didn’t work much… I still love chocolate, probably more so today than when I was a child. During a recent trip to Europe, my eyes (and taste buds) discovered chocolate unlike any before. It was magnificent. It also happened to be the trip that provided me with a new found respect for the unknown labors in the cacao fields. During my trip, I read Carol Off’s Bitter Chocolate and discovered a lot about the history of cacao beans, the people who work the farms, and the business of profiting off the people and these little beans. What I wasn’t prepared for was what I would learn about myself and how my views of chocolate would change. » Read the rest of this entry «

March 2009 . Ice Cream: The Delicious History

Here’s to another wonderful weekend of good books. I tend to read rather heavy food books but Ice Cream: the Delicious History by Marilyn Powell surprised me — it was a quick, fun, and light-hearted recount of how ice cream made it’s mark in life (but it’s also not all that factual, so it’s best to treat it as a fictional story).

» Read the rest of this entry «

March 2008 . Apple Tarts

“Always make extra pastry. You never know what suprises life is going to serve up.”

Ruth Reichel
Tender at the Bone