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!
I really miss local apples. I got spoiled as a kid—we grew up within walking distance of an apple farm, and in October came the McIntosh. First pulled from the low hanging branches of their little, scraggly trees; then dropped into baskets; then stuffed into pockets, into mouths. Some of them made it to the [...]
A few nights ago, I conquered the common cold over the stove. It was a long journey to recovery, I realized. As I stirred the nutty, spicy mixture of soy milk, cardamom, cinnamon and honey into a lump of leftover Chinese takeout, I knew that I had finally grown up. That is not a joke.
I’ve [...]
I just finished licking all ten of my fingers and am feeling like Sir Kay from The Sword and the Stone. For some reason, one of my most vivid childhood memories involves watching him take down a drumstick in a single lippy bite… and wincing in embarrassed self-recognition. I may have been disgusted then, but [...]
I really like a late summer plum. We’re into fall now, but still on the cusp, and stone fruit gets better and better from now until its dearth. I made a rustic plum galette recently, which is a nice way of saying that I made a dessert with permissibly crumpled edges and uneven folds. Every [...]
I have loved a lot of zucchini this summer. Never, even when it took over my garden and would not stop showing up in heaps and piles at the market, did I stop collecting it. I can pretty confidently say that I’ve eaten summer squash and zucchini every day for the last two and a [...]
I love a late summer pepper. There are so many iterations: hot, not. Red, orange, yellow…. My favorites are multi-colored, those that haven’t graduated from one stage to the next. The fact that peppers change color as they age really excites me. Also, the older they get, the more I like them. I appreciate that. [...]
We’ve taken to roasting a chicken on Sundays. It may not seem like the most practical thing to heat up a tiny kitchen when external temperatures exceed 100 degrees on most days, but there’s nothing like the taste of freshly roasted chicken—especially when it gets an encore as tarragon chicken salad or as the base [...]
Today, I got a taste of the end of summer: no more Texas blueberries at the grocery store. They stopped showing up at the farmers’ market a while back, but even the farmers in cooler stretches of the state have ended their season as well. I’ve stockpiled a few frozen pints, and can honestly say [...]
This summer, I’m all about peeling and eating… I hardly bother to cook my corn, it’s so heavenly all by itself. If there’s someone else around I keep my raw cob gnawing under wraps, surreptitiously leaving one ear behind as I boil the others. I can tell mine apart because it is a little paler, [...]
My melon vine went crazy this spring. Or maybe I’m mad, to project a state of mind on a plant. But there must be one. How else could plants send their tendrils and curlicues out into the firmament to find makeshift trellises? It took my melon vine a matter of days to reach and climb [...]
