You know, I used to be afraid of deep-frying.

Vats of boiling oil. I mean, doesn’t that sound like some form of medieval torture? Just the thought of it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Still, if you want homemade doughnuts…

“Leave the kitchen, kids! Get out from underfoot, there, puppy dog. Cat: off the counter. Mama is making doughnuts!”

Hmph. Makes me want to don my hazmat suit.

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Ah, gelato, newest pop star of the fancy ice cream crowd.

So, what IS gelato, exactly?

Ice cream.

Italian ice cream, to be exact. But it’s a bit more complicated than that…

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Pie truly is a beautiful thing.

Pie for breakfast? Absolutely. Lunch or dinner? Oh, yeah, it works.

And pie for dessert? Let me count the ways…

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Confession time. Have you ever stood in your house in the middle of winter, an open plastic container in your hand, taking sniff after sniff of…

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Cool and creamy coconut ice cream is the fountain of youth for me.  It takes me back to a time when I was thin, tanned, and away from home for the very first time. It was 1985, and I was 17…

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Remember the famous Tunnel of Fudge Cake?

Clearly, this isn’t it.

And amazingly enough, there are people in this world who don’t live and die by chocolate.

The pages of whose cookbooks don’t automatically fall open to recipes for brownies and devil’s food cake and chocolate chip cookies.

You know who you are, vanilla fans. And lemon lovers.

And coconut connoisseurs.

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What is it about coconut that’s so attractive? Enshrined in popular culture from South Pacific to the Marx Brothers to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it’s a food that’s provided as much entertainment as sustenance.I’ll admit, until a few years ago, it was a food I could take or leave with equal aplomb. I think the breakthrough happened in a restaurant kitchen where I was working, and someone made coconut shrimp with mango salsa for an appetizer one evening. Holy cow, was that good! Ever since, it’s been Katy bar the door, further cemented when King Arthur started carrying our dried coconut milk powder, and I started playing. I added it to classic buttercream, and used the resulting frosting on top Kahlua-soaked chocolate cake layers for a colleague’s wedding cake.

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Passover is to the Jews what Lent is to Catholics: a time of ritual, of family, a time of faith.

And a time when you have to stop eating some of your favorite foods.

For Catholics, it’s no meat on Fridays. Not so bad, really. Adults usually enjoy fish, anything from broiled salmon to Tuna Wiggle. Kids can always get by on pizza, or mac and cheese. For the more imaginative, a cheese soufflé, spinach lasagna, or Thai stir-fry are options.

But for the Jews, the eschewed foods are flour and leavening. Which means baking, as we know it, is pretty much out the window. (more…)