Putting the FUN in funicular.
As some of you know, in addition to blogging here, I also run a low-sodium food site called The Daily Dish. I’ve spent years creating recipes, sometimes off the top of my head, other times jumping off something already published. I often go through cookbooks and websites looking for new ideas and inspiration. Whenever I adapt someone else’s work, whether slightly or significantly, I make a point of citing sources and linking to the original. It’s simply the right thing to do.
Happy Saturday, everyone! The lovely Nat @ Book Line and Sinker is featuring my cookbook Kick the Can! as part of her ongoing Weekend Cooking series.
If you’d like to enter to win a FREE copy of Kick the Can! and get a preview (she’s shared my recipe for Cheesy Potato Chowder), CLICK HERE!
The lucky winner will be chosen this Wednesday, January 25th – enter now so you don’t miss out!
GOOD LUCK!
TURKEY COOKIES!
Looking for a fun activity or an adorably delicious dessert for Thanksgiving?
Gobble gobble!
I don’t typically cross-post across my two blogs, preferring to compartmentalize my life (hah) but I’ve been so busy recreating this recipe I didn’t get round to writing anything else. So indulge me.
Portland Trails is holding a “Trail Gourmet” Recipe Contest and I won’t beat around the bush. I’d like to win. I thought long & hard about which of my recipes to enter, and while walking the Fore River Sanctuary this week it came to me. SAMOSAS. I’d created a fantastic low sodium recipe for samosas four years ago, shortly after launching The Daily Dish. While a little time intensive to make, these samosas freeze beautifully and would showcase one of Maine’s premier agricultural crops: Potatoes! Samosas are perfect hiking fare. Small and portable, yet hearty and filling. They’re a healthy meal in an incredible, edible wrapper. And they’re DELICIOUS – especially with the tangy subtle sweetness of the mango dipping sauce, which is easily toted in any lightweight lidded container. Double dipping a MUST! So if you’re craving something extraordinary the next time you head out on the trail, look no further than Fore River Sanctuary Samosas with Mango Dipping Sauce. Gourmet vegetarian snacks that pack a healthy, meal-like punch – NO SILVERWARE NECESSARY!
Continue reading “Fore River Sanctuary Samosas with Mango Dipping Sauce”
Back in January, I went to the New Hampshire Historical Society to take in a long-awaited exhibit called America’s Kitchens.
Sponsored by Historic New England, this exhibit covered the entire history of the kitchen in this country, as well as recipes, cooking techniques, and most importantly, the role/s of women in these important chores. Although fairly small in scale, it featured not only print materials, but some fascinating antiques, a vintage 50s kitchen complete with appliances, and even a few hands-on displays. As a real foodie, I’d gone into the exhibit thinking this glimpse into the past would be pure entertainment. But it left me grappling with my own ignorance. Although I can recollect recounted snippets of my great grandmother’s and my grandmother’s childhood chores, they’re fuzzy at best. As a modern woman, I have never known the kitchen as anything but fun. This exhibit reminded me that until very recent times, the kitchen was anything but.
Historically, cooking and kitchen work fell principally if not solely to females, and before the advent of today’s convenience technologies, the preparation, storage and keeping of food, and all associated & very necessary cleaning tasks were nothing short of grueling. It’s one thing today to make a choice to cook or clean, but back in the day, women (unless they were wealthy) had NO CHOICE. Sun up to sun down was devoted to maintaining fires, tending to livestock, working fields, preparing food, feeding families, raising children – and by raising I mean everything involved with their upbringing, be it nursing, changing, teaching, playing, and so on. All day long there was cleaning to be done, not to mention seasonal activities, like canning, pickling, the smoking and salting of meats, butter making, and more. And let’s not forget other important tasks like the making and mending of clothes, along with their maintenance. Laundry alone would take hours of backbreaking labor. The Whirlpool Corporation (well, technically its predecessor) wasn’t even founded until 1911!!
Home life for our predecessors was more than thankless; it was mandatory indentured servitude. No wonder women were so eager to escape! The kitchen was and is the heart of the home, but historically it was also a place of undeniable struggle. Against hunger, against nature, and against gender roles. While some women embraced their expected place, you can understand why others railed against it. Choice, my friends, can make even unappealing tasks palatable. Which brings me to another interesting point raised by the exhibit. When American housewives had the finance and good fortune to pass their labor onto others, they happily did so, in the form of paid servants and unpaid slaves. Interesting to note how often these unburdened women were quick to complain about the poor performance of those toiling on their behalf.
Many modern women, such as yours truly, complain about having to do simple household chores. We gripe about having to push a vacuum across the floor or wipe down counters with magical germ killing cleaners. We grudgingly toss clothes into big shiny machines which do ALL THE WORK FOR US. In comparison to what our forebears had to slog through daily, we’re a bunch of pampered pansies. But even now, some women struggle just as they always have. They wash clothes by hand in filthy streams, they draw water from wells, carrying it miles back to their homes – often with their children in tow. Women are still scraping by, cooking meager food, making clothes by hand, even here in America. Fortunately, most of us reading this have a choice. Whether you love or hate the kitchen, you’re not bound to it. In 2010, women have the luxury of opting out of cooking altogether if they so desire, and some do.
I have been thinking about this exhibit a lot lately, not only because I recently finished reading the excellent accompanying book, but because of my own life circumstance. I am someone who loves the kitchen, but who is forced to cook out of necessity. When I was diagnosed with Meniere’s Disease and told I’d have to give up salt, I traded freedom for health. Living in a 250 year old home, and spending hours each day in my modern-yet-historic kitchen
I wonder about the women who used to work in these walls. I envision them laboring in front of the open hearth, baking bread in the beehive oven, having to constantly maintain the fire. How exhausting it must all have been. It makes me further appreciate all of the advantages I do have, circa 2010. Like my beautiful new appliances! Which do EVERYTHING FOR ME, including cool, cook and clean.. God bless them.
It’s the HOLIDAYS! And for me that means COOKIES!!!!!
As many of you know, I run a low-sodium recipe site – also called THE DAILY DISH. From now until Christmas, I will be highlighting holiday baking & gift-giving ideas. AND I AM LOOKING FOR SOME MAGICAL ELVES TO HELP ME.
Do you have a favorite cookie recipe you would like to share with the world?? Do you LONG for FAME AND/OR GLORY?? or simply want to WIN A PRIZE?!
WELL, YOU and YOUR RECIPE could be featured on The Daily Dish.
I am holding a contest now through the end of this week, looking for delicious Christmas cookie and/or candy recipes. If you have a tried-and-true personal favorite you would like to share, then please LET ME KNOW! Although my recipe site is devoted to low sodium cooking, Your recipe does NOT need to be salt free. I will be adapting entries to meet sodium restrictions. All you need to do is THINK DELICIOUS and let me handle the rest.
To make a submission, please email me: CHRISTY at THEDAILYDISH dot US. Put “Recipe Contest” in the subject line and be sure to include not only the recipe title, but list of ingredients and step-by-step directions. If you have a photo you would like to include as well, by all means do so.
I will be accepting submissions now through the end of this week – Friday, December 12th – and YES. You may enter more than once.
ALL of the winning recipes will be announced here, Monday, December 15th, and will be featured on The Daily Dish website – one per day – beginning Monday, December 15th. All winners will be contacted via email, and will receive not only the honor of appearing live on The Daily Dish, but ALSO A FABBBBBULOUS PRIZE!!
So what are you waiting for?? ENTER NOW!
The Daily Dish 