Hi. I’m Isabel, I cook and scribble. I make a lot of food and do a lot of writing, and Bread & Courage is what I have to show for it. It started as a simple food blog called TASTE but evolved into something more—a place where I express my love of food, community and the environment. Thanks for spending some time here—and be in touch!
Our parsley has become a rather intimidating shrub. I go out to the garden every day and trim it back, but its leaves only seem to multiply, bushier by the day. Before this year, I had only ever seen parsley in little diminutive stems, often contained by tiny terra cotta pots. I felt bad plucking [...]
Cake is a favorite food, though sadly it can come with some baggage. Having cake for breakfast, day after day, is a loaded decision, for example…unless you’re someone who really has no qualms about those kinds of social conventions. I’ll have some cake or pastry from time to time, but reaching for it for a [...]
Thank you, citrus, for gleaming through these gray winter months. I’ve got an appointment to have my teeth cleaned on March 16, and I’m sure my dentist will admonish me for my very much eroded enamel, but what can I say? A grapefruit a day keeps the blues away. It certainly has for me. Scurvy [...]
There’s nothing better than going to sleep in a house that smells like breakfast. Knowing that when you wake up, a nice heap of something will be waiting for you, whether it’s oatmeal from a slow cooker, prunes stewing on the stovetop or muffins, just pulled from the oven. But as wonderful as breakfast can [...]
If I were asked to name some of my favorite things, great tomato sauce would quickly come to mind. So would traveling and staying someplace just for the sake of staying: as my friends Caleb and Deidre did on their honeymoon. Caleb and Deidre also happen to be cooks—mostly of the Italian variety, though they [...]
You know those people who resolve piety in the New Year, embracing soups and fruit juice and brown rice baths? Well I’m not one of them. But I do love soup. It makes me feel warm and clean and hale. This year I was especially in need of some elixing.
It started, as with all great [...]
It’s not really fair for me to have to write about shrimp and chorizo stew right now. I’ve just bent backwards, twisted my innards in a hundred directions, fallen forward, lifted halfway and generally wrung out my body and all of its angles. And why does all of this movement make a soup so unfair? [...]
Last weekend, we feasted in the snow. We were drawn to warm foods—spicy shrimp and chorizo soup, a cheesy crostata and maple gingerbread. It was a real winter meal, save for the cherry tomatoes, which begged to be picked up with their winking green stems and shiny red orbs. They looked like tiny Christmas bulbs.
Before [...]
On Friday, I sat at my desk and watched fat puffs of snow fall from an all-white sky. Ordinarily it would not be such an occurrence for me to be distracted by drifting snow on December 4th. But last Friday, I was really, really mesmerized. At times, completely lost in a faraway fantasy, which may [...]
All you last minute bakers, fret not: there is a way to produce something elegant and mouthwateringly delicious this Thanksgiving. It can happen in less than an hour, and probably with ingredients you’ve already got… provided you keep nuts in your freezer or pantry.
I have eaten lots of pecan pies in my day, but none [...]
