Many years ago, while out shopping with my four-year-old daughter, I ran into an elderly friend and stopped to chat. There was a large fake rubber tree that was part of a clothing display nearby, which Liddy started to climb. I tried to catch her eye to make her stop, and kept throwing her dirty looks as I tried to keep the conversation going with my friend. Liddy looked up at me and said loudly, “Why are you looking at […]
When Jeremy and I were writing our book, we tried to include at least one good story about each of the modern presidents, but when we came to Richard Nixon the whimsical anecdotes were not so easy to find. But here’s one thing you probably didn’t know – he was a man who could appreciate a good meatloaf. Chef Henry Haller was the Executive Chef at the White House for twenty-one years and through five presidents – Johnson, Nixon Ford, […]
A jam heart is the kind of cookie you’d expect to find resting on a lace doily beside a steaming cup of tea. They look more complicated than they are: all you need are two sizes of the same-shaped cookie cutter, sugar cookie dough, raspberry jam, and powdered sugar. The original Linzer hearts have ground nuts in the dough, are rolled out very thinly, and look exquisitely perfect, but this heart recipe is the kind of cookie that you want […]
I grew up on a grape farm, an idyllic place with orchards and vineyards, green woods to play in, and a fishing pond ringed with wild roses. We lived on the farm with my grandmother until I was five, while my parents saved up to build their own house down the road. My grandmother used to make this soup – it was her variation on potato soup, which was a frequent meal for her family during the Depression. Despite its […]
