I had my first renegade baking experience was when I was 4.  My mom was outside working in the garden, and my friend and I decided that we wanted to ‘bake’ for the first time.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t reach the recipes, so we just threw everything in our reach that looked like ingredients in the bowl.  But (luckily) we couldn’t reach the stove or the oven, and when she came back inside, she found us with a big bowl full of a green mess.

About 45 minutes after enquiring as to what we had put in the bowl, our green monster cake came out of the oven.  She had magically turned it into a verdant, yet quite tasty spice cake  (a miracle, quite possibly, as the two items I recall within reaching distance from our fridge in those days were anchovy paste and Aquavit).

Why is that memorable?  It taught me creativity and ingenuity in the kitchen can sometimes lead to fantastic, although slightly bizzare results.  Thanks to that fantastic experience, to this day I’m hard pressed to follow a recipe to the letter.  I have an appreciation for all types of cuisine, and I’m open to the bizzare.

And I really like green food.

But now I have a problem. I’m addicted to books full of fantastic diy projects – various forms of knitting, electronics, sewing, glasswork, cookbooks… but I never seem to actually MAKE anything from those shelves full of books, taking up so much valuable space and collecting dust in my tiny San Francisco apartment. Continue Reading