I have a funny relationship with coconut.  I don’t buy coconut candy bars, I leave the coconut balls behind in the assorted chocolate box, would order caramel over coconut cake and don’t do coconut rum drinks.  But when I happen to be served a coconut sweet, I always love it, and wonder why I don’t [...]

Candy making is not something I typically try my hand at. All that talk about thermometers and stages and testing methods.  Those recipes always look like the kind of thing I don’t have the patience for.  Plus, once you’ve been badly burned by hot sugar, it makes you candy-shy. But this is an exception.  I [...]

Every once in a while, it’s nice to take a step out of the brownie box.  Technically, I suppose these qualify as a blondie, but for some reason, that term has always bugged me.  I don’t really remember where this recipe came from, but I seem to remember cleaning out the panty and finding a [...]

I set out to make a cookie reminiscent of good-old fashioned gingerbread cake.  When I managed to achieve this, it occurred to me that if I called them gingerbread cookies, it would bring to mind the crispy, crunchy type – like gingerbread men or tree ornaments.   That is not what these lovelies are at all.  [...]

‘Tis the season for all things pumpkin – and it is my favorite time of year.  I love pumpkin.  Sweet, savory, anyway it comes.  I go a little overboard with pumpkin – I buy all the seasonal pumpkin flavored items on the store shelves, and cook with pumpkin like crazy.  Check out these cookies, enchiladas, [...]

I am a little bit of a kitchen gadget geek. Particularly when it comes to gadgets that claim to make things easier. I love my strawberry slicer, my cherry pitter and my onion chopper, but when it comes to the cabinet-space sucking larger gadgets, I tend to think twice. But a few years ago, I [...]

Just under a year ago, I put up the first post on The Runaway Spoon, my instructions for real Buttermilk Fried Chicken with a story about my encounter with Julia Child.  It took a couple of years of consideration and many months of planning and design to get the site started, but here I am, [...]

I would hazard a guess that for many people, the image that comes to mind with the words strawberry shortcake are those electric yellow sponge cake cups with the little crater on the top that are sold as “shortcakes,” usually next to the berries in the produce section. Maybe served with fresh berries, maybe with [...]

Any good Southern cook has a supply of sweetening syrups that would put Willy Wonka to shame.  Corn syrup, light and dark, and generally known by its brand name Karo (pronounced KAY-Ro).  Molasses, regular and blackstrap.  Sorghum.  Cane syrup.  Maybe even maple syrup, though that smacks somewhat of the Yankee.  I use them all. Corn [...]

During my college semester abroad in London, I was determined to visit Austria on winter break.  I am not sure where this notion came from, maybe too much Sound of Music as a kid, but I set out alone to discover whether the hills were truly alive.  After a trying time in Vienna, I moved [...]