Food & Wine Writing & Books: Food & Wine Writing & Books
by maribeth
Comments Off on Sweet and Savory Holiday Baking with Holly Herrick
Sweet and Savory Holiday Baking with Holly Herrick
Holiday Baking à la Holly Herrick
Looking to take your holiday baking up a notch? Pick up a copy of Holly Herrick‘s new book, The French Cook: Cream Puffs & Eclairs, and whip up some sweet and savory creations that will leave you and your guests swooning. This cookbook, second in the series, showcases luscious-looking delights in glossy images that you’d never believe are so easy to make. But according to Holly, they are. And they’re also economical.
With choux as the foundation for most everything in The French Cook: Cream Puffs & Eclairs, you learn about this fun and messy pastry dough that becomes light and airy once baked. You can make these floaty confections weeks ahead and keep them in your freezer and take them out as you need them. I see this as a wonderful holiday baking project either by yourself or say between mother and daughter. “It’s always my goal to get people really exciting about cooking. It’s important that it’s fun and delicious,” says this renowned food writer and author of six cookbooks.
“Happily (choux) is one of the easiest pastries to make: bring a little water and butter to a simmer in a saucepan, dump in flour, beat over heat to thicken it, and whip in a few eggs. That’s all there is to it…”
—Julia Child, The Way to Cook, 1989
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Online Shopping Suggestions: Holidays 2013
Scrumptious Offerings from Telluride Truffle
Are you starting to panic about all the holiday doings? Keep it simple. Do what you can do and enjoy your time making merry and bright. When it comes to shopping, the best way to do that for family, friends and business acquaintances living far away is to send them a gift from one of the wonderful online boutiques highlighted on my Online Shopping page. Each purveyor showcases original gift ideas that will make the people on your list stand up and take notice. Save the cookie cutter stuff for the holiday baking and check out what these charming shops have to offer on my Online Shopping page. Type in the code Bonjour—or in the case of Ruth’s Toffee and Rahmen + Co, just mention Bonjour Colorado—to receive your 10% discount. Here are some of the highlights from these boutiques (in addition to what I’ve outlined at that page).
Colorado Shopping Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride: Colorado Shopping Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride
by maribeth
Comments Off on Telluride Ski Resort Opening Weekend: A Great Kickoff to the Season
Telluride Ski Resort Opening Weekend: A Great Kickoff to the Season
Selfies Are Even Sweeter When You’re Skiing at Almost 12,000 Feet the First Day of the Season with Your Sweetie
Nice Corduroy
Woo-hoo! What a fun few days it has been. I’m giving my legs a rest today after having skied a bunch with friends, my hunny and by myself over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Telluride Ski Resort had one of its best openings ever, thanks largely to an abundance of storms in November, improved snowmaking, blue skies and pleasant temperatures. There was so much of the mountain to explore off of our familiar loop—the network of trails connecting lifts 4, 5 & 6—that my legs are screaming.
It was all so good that it was hard to stop. (Usually when I ski into shape—from my sedentary writer’s life—I start out with just an hour a day and increase an hour each day out. But no, this year the snow was too sweet.) We also received a lot of nice, wet snow last month which pasted in the mountain amazingly well. Indeed, the coverage is fantastic and with more snow forecasted for tomorrow, it looks like we’ll have one of the best early seasons ever.
Hotels & Lodging New England Restaurants Travel: Hotels & Lodging New England Restaurants Travel
by maribeth
3 comments
Thanksgiving Reflections on a Connecticut Coastal Town Vacation
Mom and I at One of the Favorite Culinary Discoveries of Our Trip
Mom Enjoying Chowder in Mystic, Connecticut
Thanksgiving. A time to be grateful. I practice gratitude all year long—it’s what gets me through some of the toughest times. But around Thanksgiving, it’s nice to serve up a few extra helpings.
I’m grateful for my parents still being a part of my life right now. And I’m particularly thinking about my mother who just two days ago underwent a double knee replacement at the age of eighty. The pain must have been really bad for her to have opted for such surgery. I pray that she heals well and that her two brand new knees make a difference in her life.
I’m thinking back to a trip we took together last June, the first travels we’d done together—just the two of us—in a few years. We were like two girls on the run—Thelma and Louise wannabes looking to cut loose. Mom, as my Dad’s constant companion, hadn’t been out on a fun getaway with me, her “best-est” travel buddy in years. (Plus, most of her friends have passed away, so her vacationing days are few and far between.) We’ve always traveled tons together and getting back on track to long car rides filled with constant chatter, leisurely meals showcasing regional specialities, hotel stays where we’d talk into the wee hours of the morning and shopping forays where we’d experience the best of female bonding was all long overdue. Mom and I have always shared similar tastes: I am my mother’s daughter par excellence. So there’s little dissension about what to do and where to go; we view the world and its surroundings through a similar lens, especially when it comes to travel.
Colorado Food & Wine Hotels & Lodging Shopping The Rockies: Colorado Food & Wine Hotels & Lodging Palisade Shopping The Rockies
by maribeth
Comments Off on Perfectly Palisade: Colorado’s Wine Country
Perfectly Palisade: Colorado’s Wine Country
The View from Canyon Wind Cellars
What a wintery time it has been here in Colorado! It even snowed on the western slope in Palisade/Grand Junction, an area known as the bread basket/banana belt of the state where it’s typically twenty degrees warmer than in the mountains. I did a getaway there with a friend over the weekend and reveled in exploring Colorado’s wine country; I loved seeing the vines beneath a frosty blanket of white. Vineyards the world over are picturesque, however, I find the contrast of the rows and rows of vines backdropped by the dramatic, buff-colored rock towers and cliffs here—known as the Book Cliffs—especially striking.
Colorado Food & Wine Podcasts Telluride: Colorado Food & Wine Podcasts Telluride
by maribeth
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Marla Meridith Talks About Family Fresh Cooking and More
Marla’s Maple Cranberry Bourbon Martini
Ever wonder who’s behind those wildly successful food blogs? You know the ones that leave you salivating over every dish and make you yearn to recreate the same in your own home? Well, click on the play button below to hear what Telluride local Marla Meridith says about her blog, Family Fresh Cooking, a popular website/blog that enjoys a large following on virtually every platform of social media.
“I work hard to make it very visually appealing,” Marla told me during a recent Travel Fun interview when talking about how she became a food stylist/professional photographer/blogger practically overnight. “A lot of the food bloggers are self taught and workshop driven,” Marla continues when talking about her blog that features mostly original recipes and all her own photos. Indeed, Marla takes whole foods and makes them shine. In our interview she chats about two seasonal favorites: her Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake and Maple Cranberry Bourbon Martini, recipes you’ll want to prepare for the holidays.
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Food & Wine France French Life Paris Podcasts Travel Writing & Books: Cooking Schools Food & Wine France French Life Paris Podcasts Travel Writing & Books
by maribeth
Comments Off on Susan Herrmann Loomis: On Rue Tatin in Normandy
Susan Herrmann Loomis: On Rue Tatin in Normandy
Susan Herrmann Loomis with a Tarte Tatin, Her Signature Dessert
L’Heure de l’Apéritif at Susan’s Cooking School
“Apples are a huge part of the cooking here in Normandy,” says cookbook author Susan Herrmann Loomis on the phone from France during a Travel Fun interview with me.
And to most of us they’re such a big part of fall and Thanksgiving, so tune into the our chat below if you’d like to add a French twist to your holiday feasting. I met Susan briefly some twenty-five years (yes—a quarter of a century) in Paris at an American women’s function when I first moved to the French capital. At that time she was working as an assistant to Patricia Wells on The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris, one of my all-time favorite books.
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Colorado Mountain Living Shopping Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride: Colorado Mountain Living Shopping Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride
by maribeth
Comments Off on Ski Fever
Ski Fever
Snowmaking on Top of Fresh this Week at Telluride Ski Resort—YES
Woo-hoo! Boy, has the snow been piling up here in Colorado.
Many people around the U.S. dream of a White Christmas. Here in Telluride, that’s a given. Ditto for Thanksgiving. And often we even have a white Halloween. This year’s Hallow’s Eve turned out to be super white—so much so that (as the pictures below or on the next page show) locals and Telluride Ski Resort workers alike hiked up the mountain and hit the trails to indulge in some sweet pow.
