These cranberry lapsang poached apples taste like the essence of fall. They are at once familiar and surprising, a sweet apple with no cinnamon to be found. And yet there are still warming, fragrant spices in the form of allspice and fresh ginger. Lapsang souchong tea infuses the apples with a subtle smokiness, like a whiff …
Fall
There’s something about turning on the oven when the weather first turns cold. It’s like digging your favorite sweater out of the back of the closet and putting it on and remembering, for the first time in months, the sensation of coziness. This almond anise plum torte is delightfully cozy. It’s simple and rustic and …
Fall has always been my favorite season. Lately, I’ve been focusing on the particular pleasures of the autumnal shift. The apples and the sweaters and the foliage and pictures of my friends’ with their baby on her first visit to a pumpkin patch. Stuff that makes me feel good. Like new socks. My dog’s tentative …
Every September, I look forward to the baskets of fragrant grape varietals that Klug Farm brings to the Green City Market. Canadice, Einset, Interlaken, Jupiter, and Thomcord grapes bear little resemblance to the blandly sweet red and green grapes that you find at most supermarkets. And unlike Concords, they don’t have pesky seeds. They’re complex, …
Plums are farmers markets’ harbingers of fall. They come in with the peaches and the berries and go out with the apples and the pears. When plums show up, summer heads out. This raspberry plum crisp is a sort of summer’s last hurrah. It’s comfort baking at it’s simplest and best, like a light sweater …
Most Wednesdays during the growing season I go to the Green City Market in Lincoln Park. It is, of course, where I shop for fruits and vegetables. But I also like to go to the free chef demonstrations that the market hosts. Because these take place on Wednesday mornings, the crowd tends to be mostly retirees, …