Well, hello there! Great news…SFTF is featured on Design*Sponge today! Welcome, all D*S readers! If you’re an SFTF reader (not to drive home any ideas of “camps” here among you all) who has yet to stumble upon D*S, it is a site full of amazing inspirational posts from some of the most creative minds in the world. The topics and projects featured there never cease to amaze me! And I’m addicted, checking in on the D*S divas at least twice a day. My recipe on D*S for Perfect Pumpkin Risotto is one that I conjured up many months ago, and I’ve been biting my nails ever since, anxious to share…

I hinted in the last post that I’d been doing a lot of canning recently. I grew up with canning, helping my mom put up all sorts of fruits and vegetables for our family’s winter eating. Sadly, I didn’t always appreciate the font of knowledge that was before me at the time. Nor did I really embrace canning again until last year. This autumn I’ve been a woman on a mission, intent on returning to the traditions of putting up plenty of jars to “keep on keepin’ on” with the local eating long after the garden is in its wintery bed. The recipe I’m giving you today isn’t exactly the…

This week finally felt like winter around here. Don’t get me wrong. It’s certainly been frigid for several weeks now, but the skies were gray and the ground dull brown. The epitome of winter, at least in my mind, is brilliant blue skies with blinding sunlight streaming down that makes a generous blanket of snow glisten as it crunches under your feet. That’s what this week has been in southeastern Pennsylvania. And the sunsets…ah, the winter sunsets are the most beautiful with hues of violet, crimson and orange that cut through the leafless trees. There’s another stunning one developing right this very minute as I type. I love that my…

Today is a special day for me. It was four years ago that D and I went on our first date. And what a first date it was. It started with a long stroll through the Philadelphia Museum of Art where we sat by the monastery courtyard fountain and he took my hand for the first time. Then we had a late lunch at More Than Just Ice Cream on Pine Street. He had the guacamole; I had the grilled cheese with tomatoes; and we both agreed that water is the only drink we ever order out. We shared an enormous slice of the house special: apple pie al la…

I don’t know about where you are, but around here, the smell of fall has been in the air all week. It’s especially heavy in the dewy cool morning light. I smile like the Mona Lisa when I’m walking to class or working in my garden. I’ve pulled the light sweaters out of the cedar chest. What is it about autumn that just makes life a little sweeter? And is there anyone out there that “hates” fall the way some people hate winter or summer? I can’t imagine disliking cool nights, crisp mornings, and warm (but not hot) sun in the afternoon. With the advent of autumn on my doorstep,…

Alright, I’ll be honest here folks. The creative juices just aren’t flowing today. It might have something to do with the celebratory scotch last night, or it might have to do with my long-time-coming admission to myself that I just don’t like turnips all that much. Yep, you heard me right. I don’t like cooked turnips. I tried and I tried. I roasted them. I put them in soup. I put them in potpie (which I do admit wasn’t all that bad). I fried them. And now I’ve finally mashed them with roasted garlic. If roasted garlic can’t endear them to my taste buds, nothing can. Oddly enough, I don’t…

With both the farmers out of town this weekend, I didn’t need to spend Sunday at the Headhouse Market. Instead I took this extra time to leisurely harvest some flowers for drying and to take some end-of-season photos of the farm. With all the hustle and bustle that my typical Sunday mornings at the farm require in the hurry to get to market, I hadn’t slowed down enough lately to notice how the season is coming to an obvious halt. I’m no stranger to the changing of the seasons, having grown up on a farm that ebbed and flowed with the shortening and lengthening of the days. But somehow this…

I’m starting to feel like a broken record here but it’s really true…I love cooking with my mom. Besides the fact that she’s a great cook herself, she’s got all this amazing know-how that you just don’t find in cookbooks. And she has a couple of recipes that I don’t dare mess with on my own. I’m talking about those childhood favorites that never taste the same when you attempt to recreate them yourself as an adult. I don’t think I’ll ever make mac & cheese on my own. It’s a shame really because I love mac & cheese and when the dreaded day comes that my mom is no…

I toyed with titling this post “Kohlrabi Part II” but thought better of it. I suspect you will all be sick of hearing me rave about kohlrabi by the end of this summer. But until then, welcome to a second adventurous recipe using kohlrabi. I often putz around in the kitchen, twisting perfectly normal recipes into oddities, much to the ire of my boyfriend, D. All the poor guy wants is a veggie burger and some stuffing prepared out of a box. I don’t like things when they’re so simple. Why not try something new and different, right? Thus, inspired by my time in Argentina earlier this year, a passing…