Fig and Pepper Bread is the easy, homemade, artisan bread you never knew you wanted this fall. Get ready to fall in love, Tartlets, as I take you on a bread-making adventure. Why is Fig and Pepper Bread the book-inspired recipe for First Frost? If you've read First Frost, you know why I picked Fig and Pepper Bread for this book-inspired recipe. For those of you who haven't read the book yet: Get on that. It's a great book. Fig and Pepper Bread...
You guys, this is a fancy recipe. So, break out the company plates 'cause you’re gonna want to show this one off with your best china. I'm sure some of you are already drifting away from this post because you think "fancy" means "difficult," but that is NOT true. Stay with me. I promise that this is not going to be scary. Just really, really pretty. And tasty. The main character of Daughters of the Lake, Kate, goes to stay with her cousin...
One of the things I love about Emily Giffin’s novels is that she really captures the soul of whatever city or town she sets her story in. I was excited to see that All We Ever Wanted is set in Nashville, which I became more interested in since my close friends moved down there a few years ago. We’ve yet to visit them, but we hope to adventure with them in their new city soon. Honestly, given how much the food scene in Nashville has grown...
Everyone knows that the best part about Ikea -- apart from it not being a haunted Orsk store -- is the in-store restaurant. There's just something exciting about grabbing that tray, standing on the line cafeteria-style, and being ladled up a giant spoonful of steaming Swedish meatballs smothered in gravy. That's what makes an Ikea trip so great -- you can spend the entire day there, wandering around and being fed a hot meal without ever...
This Cioppino may be the best meal I've made all year. For reals. Seafood lovers, you are in for a TREAT. Even before I decided that I was going to keep reading The Immortalists, I knew I wanted to make a dish that related to San Francisco. Simon is the first sibling you meet in The Immortalists, and his story quickly takes him to The City by the Bay. His love of SF and the freedom he experiences there is what made me fall in love with this...
The hardest thing about these Easy Ground Beef Gyros is figuring out how to pronounce them. Gyro. Is it "Jy-roh"? Or, is it "Guy-ro"? Maybe it's "Year-roh? I’ve been to Greece, and I still don’t know how to pronounce "gyro" correctly. (To be fair, I didn't see gyros on any menus there, so I didn't have the opportunity to inquire about its pronunciation). I think it’s the last one ("year-roh"), but please do NOT quote me on that. I have...
It's Cincinnati Chili Season, everyone. My favorite time of year. We're well into September now, and that means it's time for crunchy falling leaves, taking cozy sweaters out of storage, all things pumpkin spice and apple related, and...the return of FOOTBALL! And the return of Cincinnati Chili, the unofficial football of Tartlet Cottage. A love story about food and football I can't even believe I'm writing this post. If you knew...
I'm finally posting about my favorite food. PASTA. Honestly, I'm shocked I've held out as long as I have. I could eat pasta every single day. Confession: I might have actually done that in college and ballooned 40 pounds. So, I have learned the hard way that, no matter how much I want to, I cannot eat pasta every day. But, if I could request to eat only one food for the rest of my life, it would be pasta. (And maybe Chinese takeout. And some...
In my last post, I recommended some perfect books for summer reading. I'm now pairing that list with the perfect summer salad. Does anyone else barely cook on the stove during summer? Because that’s me. While I love firing up the oven or having a bubbling pot on the stove during the cooler months, I loath being cooped up in the kitchen during warm weather. For one thing, our Cottage kitchen is adorable but poorly ventilated, so even with the...
I had a tough time thinking about what recipe to pair with You Think It, I'll Say It ; the stories are so varied, and all of them lead you into different places. And, aside from a small mention of raccoon stew (um, NO), food wasn't prominently featured in this book. However, there was one theme running through many of the stories that really spoke to me -- the one that characteristically appears in so many of Sittenfeld's works -- and that is...
