


Smoking Tofu on the Grill
Long, long ago, and in a faraway place, a restless wandering teen found herself at a rainbow picnic in a drizzly Northwestern city. There she ate some tofu, and Lo! It was delicious, which nobody had ever expected…
Anyway, that was me and I still occasionally experiment with tofu because I know it can be done and I want to see if I can do it. I like a challenge, and, if you know more than three people (vegan or not) who actually get excited to eat the quivery blobs then, well, you know different people than me, I guess.

English Scones with Blueberry Stilton and Lavender
Scones are on the list of foods I detested from childhood because I’d never had them prepared quite to my tastes. I associated the word “scones” with the heeby-jeeby tactile sensation I get from pulling wet sweaters out of the washing machine or squeezing cotton balls. Sounds weird, I know, but that’s what scones reminded me of until a recent 4:30 a.m. airport adventure with all three of my kits in tow. After baggage was checked and carry-on’s were rifled through to a soundtrack of tired toddler wailing, we passed a coffee/tea/baked goods stand from a chain I’m not familiar with and don’t remember the name of.

Flavorful Homemade Flatbread
Regardless of whether or not I can come up with an articulate sentence about the stuff, flatbread is definitely having a moment, and it’s surprisingly easy to make if you have the time. Versatile, too, making delicious sandwiches or quesadillas even though it isn’t quite bread and isn’t quite tortillas, either. I have big plans to try baking some into dip chips in the unlikely event that I ever have leftovers.

Banana Cobbler. Amazing.
Bananas almost always fit my budget, so I almost always have a few on hand that need to be eaten today or be bread tomorrow. Sometimes I don’t want banana bread, however, and my quest for a fresh banana treat is what delivered unto me this amazing recipe. Manna from heaven. Mananas from heaven, maybe, snickersnicker.

Veggie Hoppin’ John with Savory Cornbread Waffles
This all started with the Great Waffle Drought. I didn’t bring my old waffle maker with me when we headed East, it was a hand-me-down on it’s last leg and I figured a new one would be easy to come by. Wrong. I kept hoping for one when Mother’s Day and such gift-giving holidays would roll around and kept not getting one, until not giving me one became a kind of running joke that everyone laughed at except me. At long last, when the dream had faded to a mere vague longing, the Old Man surprised me with a Belgian style kajigger.