2020. I have nothing new to add to the fray of articles, news stories, blog posts, Facebook entries or Instagram feeds concerning this current year. How quickly life can change. How quickly what was normal can vanish. How creative and resilient we can be when faced with unseen challenges. As a cooking & baking instructor,…
It Was A Very Good Year
2018 has been and gone but The Tiny Kitchen had a great time! A year full of new connections with students, colleagues, venues and food. Here are some of my favorites:
The Bread Lab
The first time I heard The Bread Lab’s Dr. Steve Jones speak was in 2014 near Coupeville with a gathering of bakers for Whidbey Island Bread. I had to fight back tears when he spoke of the wheat-growing history on Whidbey Island alone, not to mention all of western Washington and Oregon. Dr. Jones takes…
My Kind of Road Trip
We got away from The Tiny for a couple of days early September. Driving south to Portland is an easy few-hour trip that pays countless dividends. Goals: gas masks, hipster coffee, estate-grown olive oil, hotel-swimming pools, and regionally milled flour. We added some Willamette Valley wines, Ken’s Artisan Bakery, Community Plate, Providore Fine Foods, Powell’s,…
Grow Your Own
Western Washington appears to be drying out; at least this week! With the break from rain, I am prepping garden beds-turning soil, adding compost, devising guards against marauding gangs of chickens. I’m deciding what will be planted where AND I’m starting the warmer weather seeds. While I only have a 1/4-acre lot, and that with…
April Into June
Spring has been cool so far. The grass still grows, the limbs still leaf, everything is turning more and more green, but it’s chilly! For some indoor activity, check out the classes page for current offerings into June. We’ve added a few more knife skills classes for adults, and a couple of weekend offerings for…
Einkorn
Anyone who knows me and who needs to get my attention could just call out “einkorn!” and I’d be looking in their direction! This grain and its flour thrill me. Einkorn is known to be one of the oldest cultivated grains, most likely originating in the Fertile Crescent. It had fallen into obscurity, so when…
A Year
My students and I made quite a bit of food in 2017! Between classes at 21 Acres, PCC and here at The Tiny, students & I rolled pounds of pasta, scooped scores of squash, formed crackers and cookies, hand pies and sushi; we’ve made Tagines & cheesecakes, donuts & soups. We’ve cracked countless eggs, cried…
Summer
Long days full of light, gardens full of color, being outdoors more than in, I love summer! Our Independence Kitchen classes produced unique and tasty foods from young cooks. Ingredients were provided, along with guidance, but the students had to work in teams to produce salads, entrees, and desserts. At 21 Acres, our Cultivating Cooks…
Many Hands
One of the downsides of teaching cooking or baking classes is that we all get super busy and forget to take pictures! Our two soup workshops were a big success, with a couple of students heading straight home to recreate the minestrone and/or breadsticks for their families. Yay! Working in groups takes much of the…
Beginnings
New. New is good. New is necessary. Trying new things, extending comfort zones, stretching usual limits, all move us, inch by inch, toward learning and growth. The Tiny Kitchen is new. It is here for me and you, a place to learn, grow, connect, about food, its issues, tastes, and techniques of preparation. What shall we…
Eat Cake
[This article was originally published at In My Tiny Kitchen, Lisa’s musings from her home kitchen. We’re posting it again here.] I have found a chocolate cake that I love. I have a simpler chocolate cake, an any day, make-on-a-whim chocolate cake that is really good, but this new one? It is very good. I…
