The Vagabond Kitchen: New Homes and Peach Bread Toast
6-9-15 The mist on the lake rose in spectral tendrils. A dazzle of sparkling sunlight stretched like a glittering crown across a pale brow. Exhaustion tugged at me from one direction and excitement from another. This was the beginning of a new chapter in my life. My partner, Orson and I packed our belongings into […]
The Vagabond Kitchen: Introduction
Figuring It All Out
In the two years since I stepped away from my old life and into a world full of new choices, it feels like every inane and sage saying or bit of wisdom about “taking control of one’s own life” has circled through my mind like the maddening lyrics of the latest pop song over gas […]
Spices Improvising
It’s possible to learn cooking techniques from the oversights of others. My parents, the people who taught me about seasonal eating, food preservation, and instilled within me seeds of passion for culinary consciousness, didn’t teach me about spices. They both cooked wonderful meals, ordered bulk spices from the local food co-op (five pounds of bay […]
Wisdom Sauce
The wind today doesn’t blow, it swirls in eddying leafy gusts. Trees dance naked in southern drafts, green tipped spring growth colors the horizon for the first time in months. Early May in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula runs the weather spectrum—from humid days overshadowed by big bellied storm clouds to bursts of snow flurries that keep […]
The Art Of Eating Chocolate
If you’re at all like me, you’ve probably had a situation like this: You’re at a party. There is a bowl of m&m’s on the refreshment table around which you’re conversing. You grab a handful of m&m’s while your chatting. And then another handful. And then another. And before the night is over, you single-handedly […]
Recipe Lines
I’ve been cared for by almost every permanent neighbor within a square mile of my parents’ home on the north shore of Big Manistique Lake, and many other country “neighbors”. As a result, my early culinary background was diverse: Campbell’s Bean with Bacon soup at the Saunders’, sliced hotdogs on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese at […]
The Pasty: A Recipe Wrapped In Memories
Growing up in the Upper Peninsula, pasties become a part of your national identity—the food linked with wooded hills cradled in the arms of three great lakes. It’s the food that came with miners who forever altered the craggy, ancient, almost-mountains as they dug for copper, iron, and even gold. Cornish miners, communities with half-lives […]
Our Love For Chocolate
At Donckers Love is Chocolate!
Over the past few months we have learned about what chocolate is in Daniel Rutz’s article, What is Chocolate? , how different types of cacao beans affect the taste of your end product chocolate in Davin Makela’s article, Flavors of Cacao, and we have learned some powerful reasons why we should eat more chocolate in […]
The Endless Benefits of Tea
Warm The Soul and Delight The Senses
In the deep of winter and with the beginning of a new year, drinking more tea is always a part of my “self-improvement plan”. Tea provides energy throughout the day, reawakening our senses and giving our minds an unrefined, casual attentiveness without the overly busy feeling that consuming too much coffee and other energy drinks […]
Why You Should Eat More Chocolate!
Resolved to be a happier & healthier you in the new year? Don’t forego the chocolate
by Adonna Rometo Dark chocolate, from the Theobroma Cacoa tree (literally, “the food of the gods”) offers great super-food constituents. Composed of the nutrient “gems” seratonin, coumarin, calcium, magnesium, dopamine, anandamide, and theobromine, to name a few, cacao offers great health benefits. Western science is just beginning to unlock the secrets of this ancient cure-all. […]
