morsels & sauces

My mom's birthday was two weeks ago. Because we live so far away from one another, we haven't spent a birthday together in quite some time. However, this year to celebrate, I sent my mom a cake in a jar. She tells me that she is going to make it next week with my littlest niece, just as something to do while my mom is babysitting her. How lovely. This cake gets to be for both my mom and the littlest of our family. A few years ago a good friend of mine sent me a lovely sage blackberry jam from this cookbook ( Food in Jars ) as part of a Secret Santa care package. I slathered it on toast, and it was oh, so good. I admit I may have even eaten it with a spoon. Immediately, I started following Marisa McClellan's blog , and while I wasn't ready to commit to canning, I was living vicariously through those who do. I made a mental note to snap up this cookbook if I ever saw it in the used bookstore. Lucky for me, a month or so back Pegasus books had a copy on the s...

Adapted from Cookbook #27:  Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook Recipe:  Affogato I am about to leave for Illinois to celebrate.  And there is much to celebrate:  standing up as a groomswoman in the wedding of my high school friend, road trip with my 62-year-old mother and four nieces and nephews, meeting my college roommate's year-old son, and probably Doritos or some other unwholesome food on the couch in my pajamas until 2 a.m. with my best friend since I was five years old.  This is going to be good.  In the mean time, I need to get cooking this week, as there will be only small pockets of time to do any cooking over the next 10 days. So I bring you affogato.  It's hot out there, people.  It's time for ice cream.  In Italian affogato means drowned , and one can drown vanilla ice cream in just about anything and call it affogato, but traditionally that something is plain espresso.  (We cheated and used coffee, but really, really s...