Category: Food and Drink

  •     Pumpkin bread is baking in my oven as I type. Several small loaves and one larger Texas-sized ceramic dish I bought years ago near Round Top. My friend Ann bought one just like it. Would you believe I've never used it for baking until this year? I made a Texas-shaped gingerbread earlier this…

  • My socks may not match, but my feet are always warm. ~Maureen McCullough   The drought took its toll on many of the oak trees in the Hollow. But Tom found the good in that this past weekend by cutting up the dead ones into woodburning stove sized pieces. Our woodpile had dwindled so much…

  •           After several days of gray skies and temperatures below freezing, the sun finally made an appearance yesterday afternoon. And the clouds even stayed away long enough for me to say hello to a half moon and a sky full of stars that dripped all the way to the tree tops.…

  •     Well, these were actually taken last night, Thursday. I traveled with a bunch of Keller Williams colleagues via bus to Fredericksburg for a day of shopping, a wine-tasting, and then a stop in Johnson City on the way home to ooh-and-aah over the lights.     With temperatures below freezing and a wind…

  • http://ads.blogherads.com/65/6567/campaigns/14/1426/1426662/x90.js   The index card is yellow and splotched, the ink faded, but considering all of the action it's seen over the past twenty years, it's amazing it's still around at all, much less legible. When not in use, I keep it tucked in a small recipe box with other favorites, mostly one-pan wonders where…

  • We couldn't have asked for better weather in Austin, Texas on Thanksgiving Day. Clear blue skies, a touch of autumn in the breeze…perfect for throwing open the doors to cool off a small kitchen full of cooks trying to get dinner on the table.  I'm so grateful we were able to stay here and celebrate…

  •     I'm up late, waiting for pumpkin pies to cool enough to go into the fridge until tomorrow. Fresh, clean, asparagus spears and cornbread dressing (my mother's recipe) are already in the fridge, waiting to be popped in the oven first thing in the morning.  It's not the first time I won't spend Thanksgiving…

  •             …and I'm glad of it! We've needed the rain! Ponds are filling up and I'm already envisioning the fields of wildflowers we'll have in the spring. The rain brought other gifts, too. I've been trying to capture a tiny reflection in a raindrop for a long, long, long time.…

  • Yesterday I drove to the other side of Austin to wish my daughter-in-law a happy birthday in person for the first time, grateful that they finally live close enough that I can do that. It comes in handy for someone like me who always forgets to put birthday cards in the mail in time to…

  •   I'm still behind on emails and blog reading and writing my children's story, which means I still haven't figured out how to squeeze more time out of a day, but… …from the back porch I can see the hollow changing colors; and hear the music of our little waterfall joined by a chorus of…