For my Food Lover’s Book Club discussion of Anthony Bourdain’s Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, I decided to make “Bloody Valentine Plum Tarts.” I found a recipe for “Warm Plum Bleeding Heart Pies,” online and decided to add dripping blood shapes and red sprinkles to the crust to create a more realistic bloody valentine look.
These tarts would be perfect for a Halloween dessert or dinner with an ex-husband or wife.
Bloody Valentine Plum Tarts
Based on Melissa’s Everyday Cooking with Organic Produce …

I’m part of a potluck group called Supperfly, hosted each month at a different home with a theme decided by the host. For some reason, I decided to try Smith Island Cake for a recent Supperfly where the theme was to make something that’s your favorite color. I’m not exactly sure what my favorite color is but chocolate is one of Adam and my favorite foods so it seemed close enough to the theme.
That same week, a recipe for Smith Island Cake, apparently the “Official Cake of the State of …

It’s tomato season and a great time to experiment with making your own mozzarella. Making your own cheese? I don’t think Adam and I thought we could do it until we attended a seminar on cheese making at home presented by Austin Homebrew and Slow Food Austin earlier this year. Our friend Carla of Austin Urban Gardens made mozzarella from a cheese kit purchased at Austin Homebrew recently and she told us that it was pretty doable.
Once we found Austin Homebrew (it’s moved from Burnet just north of 183 to …

Adam and I are checking out Green Gate Farms CSA this month — splitting a full share with our friends Laura and Mike. CSA stands for “Community Supported Agriculture,” and basically is a way to connect consumers and farmers directly — cutting out the middle man and ensuring food is eaten at its peak. I think the best part so far is the new recipe experimenting. We picked up our loot last Saturday from our new friend Adelea and she passed along some great recipes. I made my own version …

To my surprise, I found additional photos from my recent trip to California on my camera and I couldn’t resist sharing these beautiful ones of artichokes from the stem to the table.
Jane saw these babies growing in fields as far as the eye could see and we quickly realized that we were passing through Castroville, the “Artichoke Center of the World.” The artichokes you eat are likely from this small Central California town — according to Wikipedia, they provide 75% of the nations chokes.
Weird, fun fact: Marilyn Monroe was named …