Food & Wine. Art & Food History at Abi's Farmhouse Kitchen
The Big Princess Poopie: After stalling this week on our Winery Gingerbread House, we woke up to big rains and the Big Baking Day… and a missed deadline. In my infinite pregnancy abilities, I mis-calendered delivery of said House for tomorrow. But it is really due today. (Sorry SVVGA!) Frankly, at this point in my […]
Friend Maureen convinced me in a less hectic-Holiday time (i.e. 2 weeks ago) to compete in a Gingerbread House Building Competition amongst all of the Wineries. For the entire Sonoma Valley. With the confection structures to be publicly displayed at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn. I thought, “sure! why not? Blue ribbon all the way!” […]
“Cooking gave her structure, it was substantive, meaningful, it brought her accomplishment and independence, everything she’d long desired. The last thing she wanted was a conventional life. Julia dreaded turning into the obedient little woman…. Far from resenting the kitchen to which she was virtually chained, she learned to love the feel of food and to […]
Now that we have all eaten our weight in constructed starches and savory desserts, the nerd in me wanted to look into the nuts and bolts of pumpkins… the very thing most of us are still digesting. Pumpkins are part of the Curcurbita pepo family, a group of North American Squash that includes acorn […]
8:06 PM on a Thursday night: Just shy of 6 months preggo with our second, I dream and dream and dream of a full, proper “local’s pour” of crisp, bright Chardonnay. I can even hear it unfurl into clean stemware right now! Selfishly, we have this cellar across the creek calling my name. And no […]
I loved this quote from Deborah Madison, author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone “Practically speaking, if you’re concerned about the quality of food you eat, cooking be of vital importance for it’s the only way you can really know what you are eating… There’s also satisfaction in taking responsibility for what we eat instead of […]
All of us, in one way or another, are on the hunt for better skin. Beauty is important — inside and out. In my book, it is important to treat your body, your mind, and spirit well by what you put into your mouth and present yourself well to your world. How you look (no […]
Every Fall, lovebirds visit us from Texas. When Sharon and Robert (aka the “Big Swede”) Gustavsson visit, a weekend of fun always unfolds. Robert and Dean met in some dusty South American town while Dean was on one of his fabulously epic, cross continent motorcycle adventures. Robert was building a power plant. And they have been […]
Use a potato ricer to remove skins from fresh tomatoes!! If you’re like me, you have little necessary tasks when cooking that you just HATE to do. For me, one of them is peeling the skins from fresh tomatoes. In fact, I’ll secretly use diced or crushed San Marzano tomatoes sometimes rather than just go […]
Did you know Tonic Water began as an anti-MALARIAL treatment? Yep. Originally called Indian Tonic Water, it was made by 19th century British colonialists from bitter quinine extracted from the bark of the Cinchona or “fever” tree. Quinine is an natural crystalline alkaloid with anti-inflammatory, fever-reducing antimalarial properties. Cinchona or Quina trees were “found” […]