Holiday
In The Origami Café
Introduction I come to Alnwick once or twice a year and discover some amazing things that give me a reason to write stories and share them on Vocal. These are a selection if you want to delve a little further into my Alnwick related pieces:
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 11 months ago in Feast
Rose Pastries
What do you do for flowers on romantic occasions when your Beloved has a pollen allergy? Make edible roses, of course! Not everyone appreciates getting flowers for Valentines day, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's allergies, sometimes it's principles, sometimes it's as simple as having a black thumb and not wanting to take care of the blooms until they die.
By Natasja Rose11 months ago in Feast
Resurrection Muffins
They taste like Easter morning. Even now, imagining them in my head for a moment, I crave to make them. If only my apples in the fridge hadn't gone bad, and does the color matter? Do we even have any flour in the house, and eggs... I can't even get eggs for my usual breakfast while we're in a price hike and shortage. There is an egg in this, right? Oh duh, I can easily confirm that with a glance at the recipe I just dug up. Of course, an egg. That's how baking usually works, isn't it?
By Ellen Stedfeld11 months ago in Feast
Of Sage & Spice
Thanksgiving belongs to Momma. It is her best season, I believe; she thrives amongst the gold and amber and crimson as though she was spun from autumn itself—her laughter crisp as the leaves, her hands warm as spice. The kitchen becomes her stage, and she moves with practiced certainty, measuring by memory, tasting by instinct. Every year, the house glows with pride of the decorations she has set, and the heady aroma of butter, garlic, and sage wafts through the halls, accompanied by the steady rhythm of her best knife chopping celery. The meal is always a spectacular feast, but the real star is not the turkey; At my mother's table, the cornbread dressing is the hero rather than the sidekick. The recipe is hers alone, passed from my grandmother's hands to my mother's hands, and, finally, under Momma's watchful eyes, to mine. This past Thanksgiving, in a kitchen two thousand miles away from hers, I stood before a countertop of cooling cornbread and ground sage, trying to summon her magic from memory.
By Sara Little11 months ago in Feast
The Evolution of Our Kitchen
Ahh, the joys of being Penna Dutch... and obsessed with food. When my great-to-the-fourteenth ancestor, John Jacob Dreibelbis, came over as an indentured servant, he was given a parcel of land after working for seven years. His son, Jacob B, was the one who founded the farm at the end of town. Nowadays, owning a piece of land implies you're rich. Then? Dirt poor. The kitchen still has two shadowboxes of glued fish bones in patterns from the suckers they net-trapped in the river, the only part of the fish that's inedible.
By Meredith Harmon11 months ago in Feast
In Praise of the Grand Cheese
Vegetarians outside India, I can't tell you how deprived you are. I didn't know how much I was missing out on until my very brief post-security stint at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on my way out of India on Monday morning.
By TheSpinstress 11 months ago in Feast
