From the category archives:

Health Highlights

Spice: Cinnamon – A Major Cin

true ceylon cinnamon

Ah, cinnamon. Whether it’s in our pastry or beverage, we absolutely love it. It is so popular that one probably has to live in another dimension to ever go without tasting it, much more hearing of it. So you definitely know that cinnamon smells good, and tastes even better. But did you know that the [...]

Read the full article →

Spice: Turmeric – Beyond Curry

turmeric root and powder

Curcuma longa! No, that’s not a magical phrase straight out of Harry Potter. It is the botanical name for turmeric; a yellow spice indigenous to Southeast Asia. A cousin to ginger, turmeric is widely known for its culinary uses. Western cooking mostly treats this spice as a coloring agent, where minute amounts are used to [...]

Read the full article →

Coconut – Plasma to Wine

The coconut tree belongs to the family Arecaceae and is classified as Cocos nucifera, a rapid growing tropical tree with many uses from the practical to the vital. For the western world, it is an exotic fruit, encountered usually grated and sold in plastic bags or whole in the exotic section of better fruit and [...]

Read the full article →

A Prune By Any Other Name…

…would be a dried plum.It seems Americans have a less than enthusiastic association with the noble prune and so the US food industry is considering calling them what they are: dried plums. In Europe, a prune is a dried fruit as any other and so we cannot be sympathetic nor understand the problem. Besides being [...]

Read the full article →

GINGERLY!

Ah, little root with a powerful punch!  What would Indian, Thai or Indonesian cooking be without you?  Or Christmas baking?  Or my evening tea? What to do with it?  Liven and spice dishes up!  A little goes a long way so it is wise to buy fresh in small pieces.  Ginger is healthy, too.  It [...]

Read the full article →

Vanilla – Precious Orchid

Vanilla – Spanish for ‘small sword’ or ‘pod’, is the pod of an orchid plant native to Mexico,  Central America and the W. Indies. Vanilla (Vanilla planiflora) is a member of the family orchidaceae. In 1517 the Spanish landed in Mexico searching for the legendary gold of El Dorado.  Not only did they find gold, [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →