Cedar Writes

Category: Food

  • Christmas Cookies

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    I’ve been cooking for thirty years now. I can vividly remember the first thing I baked from scratch by myself: a three-layer german chocolate cake with coconut-pecan icing. My father’s favorite, and I was nine. Skipping forward a few years to high school, and in a small school with an hour study hall, where you…

  • Mediterranean Food

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    We had intended, after my event yesterday, to head over to our favorite schwarma and gyro place and fill up there. Sunny Mediterranean food on a grey November day sounded fine. We were close to it, and as I packed up, we chatted about other possiblities. Sure, we could go with the reliable restaurant, but…

  • Maxing Out the Oven

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    I realized earlier this week after commenting that I’d maxed out my oven for the first time in this house that I was wrong. I could have adjusted the racks and put a bit more in there. But I didn’t need to. Everything fit, and there was nothing on the stovetop for this meal, which…

  • Crispy Bits of Meat

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    Last week at some point, we stumbled on a Mexican restaurant that was actually good, and in the most unexpected place. We’d been shopping in Middletown, and I keep meaning to try the little place tucked in an odd corner of strip malls, almost out of sight. Veracruz Mexican Restaurant is unassuming, very nice on…

  • Chicken is just a Vehicle

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    Honestly, that’s what I told the First Reader when I was getting ready to make this recipe. “It’s not about the chicken,” I told him, leaning over the  meat selection at the grocery store. “It’s about the other flavors. You don’t like chicken because it’s bland, but by the time this is done” – I…

  • Pho Mi Once

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    Not all of our eating adventures end well. And it really isn’t that this one ended badly, just with disappointment. I had been to Pho Mi in Miamisburg once before, with friends, and what I ordered then, blindly, had been blah. But what they ordered looked good, so I decided I had to come back…

  • Bibimbap

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    The First Reader, who once traveled around the world courtesy of the Practical Joke Department (see Heinlein’s Glory Road to find out where that reference came from) told me he’d really like to find a good Korean restaurant, and he was fairly sure there would be one near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I went online…

  • Inorganic Food

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    Chemistry is everywhere. Some of you may know this, but for a long time I lived with my Dad on a small New England farm, where we grew veggies and chickens and dabbled with other things. Most of it was his ideas, I was just grunt labor helping him keep up with chores. Dad’s been…

  • Mincemeat

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    I am trying to help a friend out with a request for good old-fashioned mincemeat that tastes good. The following are images from my Great-Grandmother Ella Vanderburg’s Grange Cookbook. I need to ask my grandmother and great-aunt if one of them is her recipe. I have fond memories of her feeding me spoonfuls of elk…

  • Food Travels

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    In our continuing quest to find good food in unlikely places, we wound up just south of Dayton, in a half-empty strip mall… Stepping into a very elegant interior after that inauspicious beginning. Now, keep in mind that usually when we do food exploration, it’s not a trip just because, we were on the way…

  • Fish for Breakfast

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    Yes, earlier this week I did eat a fish patty sandwich for breakfast. It was pretty tasty, something the First Reader had made the night before, and the extras were handy in the frigerator when we had a hectic morning. It wasn’t by choice, mind you, but we didn’t really have time for even our…

  • The Recipe Box

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    Cedar Sanderson
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    It’s raining heavily outside this morning, and as I was sipping coffee, looking at my list of what needs to be done, and thinking about this blog, I decided it was the perfect morning to do a little meal planning combined with a trip down memory lane. One of the best gifts I was ever…