Korean Delights

by Celia Hayes

So, many of the headlines this week concern themselves with Korea, a country which I have some slight connection to; that is where my father was serving a tour when I was born. And a good few decades later, I did a year-long tour there myself. About the very first thing that I realized was that Korea in the 1990s looked nothing like the TV series MASH ... and only very little like what my father remembered. Dad and his platoon with their mobile radar set-up lived in several different tent encampments near the DMZ. I spent the year living at Yongsan Garrison, in the heart of a bustling and very cosmopolitan Seoul. The garrison was itself a fairly un-crowded green island in the middle of a very built-up city – rather as

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IH 35 Road Trip – Part 2

(<--IH 35 Road Trip - Part 1)

by Celia Hayes

The road was long, and went on and on in the dark. I thought that we'd see the sunrise about the time that we passed Round Rock, but no – thanks to daylight savings time, we didn't see it even begin to get light until we passed through Waco. At that juncture, something moved us to want to take a break. Well, actually three things moved us: we were getting hungry again, my daughter wanted to top up the gas tank, and we both needed to use the bathroom facilities. And there was a billboard advertising the Czech Stop Bakery, and not a truck plaza or another Buc'ees in sight, in a little hiccup of a town called West. So, pull off the highway onto the access road, looking for the

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Adventures in Home Canning

by Celia Hayes

This latest adventure in home food preparation was my daughter's notion, upon noting that the aisle in our local HEB set aside for housewares and appliances had a new section for home canning supplies; including a sort of starter kit for novices; a large light-weight enamel lidded kettle, with a rack and some implements to shift around the jars ... of which there were also a nice assortment in various sizes. I was certain that we had a huge canning kettle in the garage – a gift from a military friend who was moving to another state – but we couldn't readily find it, as the garage is stuffed with items that my daughter has bought for that residence of her own which she hopes to have one day. But we might

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One-Pan Wurst Supper

by Celia Hayes

One of my oldest and most favorite cookbooks – and the tattered and spotted condition of my copy certainly proves the age and status – is Barbara Swain's Cookery for 1 or 2. I may have bought it before I moved out of the women's barracks as a young Air Force sergeant. I was always cooking my own meals then, since the hours I worked were not compatible with the dining hall, and the barracks did have a primitive but functional kitchen.  I definitely possessed this copy by the time I settled into a teeny studio apartment, as I clearly recall cooking many of the entrees and brunch dishes on the propane gas stove there. The marvelous thing about this particular cookbook is that every recipe in it was scaled for

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Cold-Weather Supper – Chili and Cornbread

San Antonio online Home Search by Celia Hayes

On those few days in South Texas when the weather is cold, dank and rainy, our thoughts for what to have for supper turn to something solid and warming: chili, which goes with cornbread like chocolate and peanut butter, like popcorn with the movies, and like salsa and corn chips. Over the years, we've experimented with various chili recipes – there was one from the Sunset Favorite Recipe books which called for angostura bitters and beer, another rather good but strictly vegetarian one which featured kidney beans, fresh corn and zucchini squash – but the absolute best chili recipe we have discovered was taken from Ree Drummond's Pioneer Woman, which was

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A Simple Bread Recipe for a Bread Machine

Written by Randy Watson

It is not really winter here in San Antonio, yet. We have not really had any days that have stayed below 50 yet for the whole day. Yea, we did have some really cold days the other day when it got down to 31 overnight. It is 51 degrees at 4:00 this cloudy Sunday afternoon. It was less than a month ago, we were still hitting the century mark on the thermometer, so no, my blood has not thickened up yet.

Although, we are not always known for arctic cold winter snaps in South Texas, sometimes we do get into the twenties or rarely into the teens overnight. Anyway, ever since I was a kid, one of the things my mom started us doing to keep us out of trouble was bake bread when we could not

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Waxing the Cheese

by Celia Hayes

That is something which sounds vaguely like something which only ought to be done by consenting adults, in private and behind closed doors, but  . . .  well, it's really rather prosaic, in the process of making cheese. It's the final thing done, before stashing the wheel of cheese in the lower shelf of the refrigerator to age for the required number of months. Well, to all but the parmesan; that variety ages, dries and hardens bare and un-waxed for a year, before getting a slathering of olive oil. It will be another ten months before we can even sample it and know if it is any good, but it already is looking dry and waxy, rather like the less expensive supermarket parmesans.

This months' cheese-making expeditions

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The Cheese Stands Alone

Ours doesn't – in fact, the pile of home-made and ageing cheeses currently takes up about half of the bottom of the refrigerator: half a dozen waxed roundels, awaiting their time to be consumed. No, there's quite a chummy little gathering, of farmhouse cheddar, of jack and Leicester, and one or two others, plus the gouda which still has another two weeks to air-dry, and a wheel of caraway cheddar which will come out of the cheese press this very afternoon, and join the gouda. Dunno what I am going to do about the furry little patches of mold growing on the surface of the gouda, though – probably scrape them off very carefully, baste with salt and wax  . . .  waxing the cheese sounds kind of suggestive, doesn't it? My daughter

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Created Tuesday, 08 February 2011 15:05

Venturing Out to the Rim

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Having a weekend day free - and feeling a touch of cabin fever after four days of ice-cold-oh-my-heck-I-think-I'm-gonna-freeze-winter-weather (San Antonio style), the Daughter Unit and I felt a deep need to get up and get out someplace. Like to a movie - and what about (suggested the Daughter Unit, with a calculating look) seeing a movie at the Palladium! Yes, indeed - said the Daughter Unit with that expression of calculated pleading that she has perfected since she was about four years old - let's go see . . . The King's Speech at the Palladium! Eh - me, I'd have held out for the remake of True Grit, but seeing that practically everyone…

Created Monday, 05 July 2010 15:14
by Julia Hayden

Summer Recipe Revel - Tomato Bread Salad

This is one of my favorite recipes when I have an abundance of two things - super-ripe and juicy tomatoes, and slightly stale artisan-bakery bread. HEB ciabatta works very well in this recipe. The bread must be of this type, which will hold shape and form when dampened, as anything else will go all soggy and disgusting.

Cube approximately half a ciabatta loaf, to make about 2 cups of 1 to ¾ inch cubes. Lightly dry cubes in a warm oven, if desired.

Slice coarsely 1 lb fresh tomatoes. You can also use a pound of cherry tomatoes, sliced in half, or even go half red and half yellow tomatoes - but they must be fresh and full of juice.

Place the bread

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