Recipe: Creamy Coconut & Banana Tart

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Imagine sitting by the sea one lazy afternoon, focused on the tattered nets of nearby fishing boats, when something big and hard bumps against your foot. When you look down, you see a giant, two lobed coconut has washed up, onto the sand. From end to end, this coconut is as long as your forearm, with tufts of hair poking out between the brown, oblong lobes. She would have traveled hundreds (thousands!) of miles to reach you, all the way from the Seychelles. And you'd know she came from … [Read more...]

Recipe: Serbian Salad

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Although the air still hangs crisp with winter, seed sowing season is nearly upon us - that time of year when the window sills of the industrious are stocked with small, peat lined plastic containers. With careful gifts of water and radiant window light, small seeds will crack open and send vivid green shoots through the black, crumbling soil, into the glow. In a few months time, these brave seedlings will make their way outdoors, into the deep, hot sunshine, where they will mature into edible … [Read more...]

Recipe: Chocolate Ice Cube Cake | ledene kocke

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If there was a giant table strewn with every cake, brownie, custard, and pie, ever, I'd be the first in line. But I wouldn't be there to eat them. Not initially. I'd be there to soak in their beauty, to enjoy the geometry. Circles, rectangles, towers of truffles. Cubes, even. I'd languish to revel in the colors - chocolate browns, raspberry reds, vanilla-cream whites, mint-leaf greens, passion fruit golds. I'd eat with my eyes until ever bit of my spirit was nourished. Then I'd … [Read more...]

Recipe: Senegal’s PB & Peanut Sugar Cookies | Cinq Centimes

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In French, Cinq Centimes means Five Cents. Don't be fooled by the name. This isn't the sort of recipe that must be studied like a terrible, paragraph-long math problem. This is not a prerequisite to calculus, or even rocket science. This is a snippet - a slice of a dream from Senegalese street vendors. A one-two-three treat worthy of any snack time. No more. No less. Every step is ridiculously easy.  The hardest part will be keeping your sweet, adoring Mr. Picky from sniffing the … [Read more...]

Recipe: Senegal’s Black-eyed Pea Salad | Saladu Ñebbe

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This New Year, I'm making room for sunlight to lay across the floor. No more discarded shoes to trip over. No more stacks of books or useless tchotchkes. Senegal inspired me. I saw photo after photo of her beautiful waters... vast expanses where sunlight runs free, unhampered by clutter. Less stuff in general, with more of the right stuff - friendship, laughter, love. This is how I want my home and my life to be.  I want to eat fresh and right. I want sunlight in my … [Read more...]

Recipe: Sweet Semolina Cake with Lemon & Rosewater | Basboosa

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Love's every whimsy can be found in the tender, fragile curve of a rose. Arab cooks must know this in their hearts, as they imbue many of their desserts with the essence of this great flower. Rose water is made from hundreds (thousands!) of rose petals and I'm convinced there is magic in every drop. Today's cake, called Basboosa, is heavy with such magic. This incredibly moist cake is conjured up with durum semolina, then soaked in a pool of syrup made with sweetened rose water and fresh … [Read more...]

Recipe: Sweet Potato Frittata

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Ava grabbed the small, purple step stool and placed it squarely in front of the kitchen counter. She's gone through a growth spurt lately and yet my little girl still stands on her tippy toes to see into the mixing bowl. On days like today, when I see her eyes peep over the top of the bowl and grow wide with delight, I hope she never grows up. With quick jabs of her whisk, she pops the yolks and helps stir together the frittata mixture. In the background we hear the delicous sizzle of … [Read more...]

Recipe: Fig & Honey Apple Polenta Cake | Bustrengo

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Sometimes life calls for  a little something extra-ordinary. A toothy smile on a cloudy day can be enough. A favorite pair of fuzzy, polka-dotted socks can even do the trick. But on other days I want something a smidge bit ... well... gourmet. I want something that says this day - this meal - this time - is more special than you know. That you're more special than you know. And so, it's not without a little irony that Bustrengo fits the bill. You see, this Fig and Honey Apple … [Read more...]