“…it is the nature of the poet to become tender and imaginative in the loneliness of confinement.” - Washington Irving Confinement I know that we are luckier than most. We are confined to a large hotel with a terrace and courtyard, a laundry room, and the hotel stock of supplies, if need be. March 16, we sent our ...
Everyday French Bread
The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity, than the discovery of a new star. - Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Isolation. Confinement. Quarantine. Scary words. Possibly even more frightening than the disease itself in that complete isolation from the world outside is, for most of us, upon us now, our reality. While the dreaded disease ...
The Perfect Summer Jellyroll
Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. - Sam Keen Sunday, August 2011. Summer has finally swept over us like a warm blanket. Waking earlier than usual, our sleep disturbed by a tumult of angst, a jumble of confusion, we felt the sun squeeze through the slats of the shutters and reach towards the bed, chasing ...
Fruited Summer Orange Dessert Salad with Orange Marmalade Cream
An orange day, a happy day, a brand-new day in the secret language that only the three of us seemed to understand. "Mmmmm," Daddy said, taking a bite of his roll. "Orange wakes you up(...) cinnamon makes you remember. - Judith M. Fertig, The Cake Therapist Hurrah! Late varieties of oranges mean that citrus season isn't ...
Moroccan-Spiced Orange Slices in Orange Blossom Water
New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on ...
Nutella, Jam, or Frangipane Brioche Flower Bread
“Why do you keep eating bread and jam,” asked Father, “when you have a lovely egg?” “I like bread and jam,” said France, “because it does not slide off your spoon in a funny way.” - Russell Hoban, Bread and Jam for Frances Sometimes I feel a bit like Frances, eating bread and jam as much and as often as I do. ...
Pear Jam Tart with buttered caramelized pears
When bounteous autumn rears her head, he joys to pull the ripened pear. - John Dryden Pear season arrives and intensifies as hotel low season sets in, as the rhythm slows, and as autumn materializes in a haze of morning brume and a carpet of sodden, fallen leaves. We arrive at the producer's barn-like warehouse after ...
Pan dei Morti or Bread of the Dead Cookies
For much of the Western world, the cool, golden days of autumn mean Halloween, grinning jack o’ lanterns and pumpkin pie, tiny ghosts, goblins, and fairy princesses digging into paper bags heavy with candy and caramel popcorn balls or bobbing for apples amid the crunch of fallen leaves in shades of copper, amber, sage. For ...
Pablo’s Real Spanish Gaspacho
Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up. - A. A. Milne Our apartment takes up about a third of the hotel's first floor (one flight up, overlooking the courtyard garden on one side of the building, street level on the other). Our ...
Clams in White Wine
Where liberty dwells, there is my country. - Benjamin Franklin The rattle of cars across the gravel of the courtyard below floats through the windows on the breeze like the distant roar of ocean waves. The shade washes over me, soothing, cooling, the shutters pulled closed against the searing heat. Voices on the street, the distant ...
