I was in a very fancy grocery store and saw a lovely, beautifully wrapped box of hot chocolate-on-a-stick.  My first thought was “I can do that.”  And those babies with their cellophane and ribbon and fancy label were selling for $10 apiece.  Yea, I can do much better than that. These pops are basically block [...]

I always think it’s nice to start off the Thanksgiving celebrations with a special cocktail and a few nibbles.  It sets a convivial mood and keeps everyone occupied while the last touches of the meal are being tended too.  Frankly, I like to have everyone’s hands busy while I am trying to get the food [...]

When tomatoes are is season, or growing on my vines if I’m lucky, I preserve them in any way I can think of.  I make sauce, tomato soup base and just plain old puree and stack them up in ziptop bags in the freezer.  Sometimes I can whole tomatoes, but now I’ve learned you can [...]

Cherry season is beginning, or at least fresh cherries are showing up in the markets here.  We don’t grow cherries locally, so when I start to see them at the grocery, I buy them up.  I love cherries, so I try to make the season last as long as possible.  I bake with the beauties, [...]

This weekend marks the unofficial beginning of summer.  That means vacations and swimming and long, lazy days and all sorts of good things.  But, for my part of the world at least, it also means heat and humidity.  So a tall, cool drink is always in order. There is just something so refreshing about tangy [...]

  I have an unruly privet hedge.  I know it can look a little shaggy and overgrown.  I know my neighbor doesn’t like it. Landscapers have tried to clean out my hedge, make it neat and groomed.  But at the end of April every year, and again, briefly, in September, that privet is wildly overrun [...]

The build up to the royal wedding continues, and I feel that it is time to share my instructions for the perfect, the quintessential British cocktail, Pimm’s Cup.  Pimm’s is a liqueur, with a long held secret recipe, the subject of much speculation.  You’ll find it at any good liquor store in the liqueur section.  [...]

I happen to think that an icy gin and tonic is the most refreshing simple summer cocktail. Two ingredients, lots of ice, and a squeeze of lime and happy hour begins. Perhaps it reminds me of punting parties in the park when I was a student at Oxford, or makes me feel sophisticated because my [...]

I have always liked the idea of making homemade hot chocolate.  I have tried many recipes; I have made hot chocolate with expensive, imported chocolates, cocoa powder and all sorts of permutations.  Butafter all the experimentation, I finally put together this recipe – using plain ol’ Hershey bars.  And it is some kind of good. This [...]