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!
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 [...]
As I mentioned recently, there’s little I like more than to cook away a Sunday. I’m particularly happy for my Sabbath kitchen this time of year, when starchy root vegetables take center stage: roasted sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots and delicate fingerlings really make my heart sing. We don’t get a lot of it around [...]
So not everybody is crazy about eggplant. That baffles me, but I understand it—especially coming from people who don’t often prepare their own, and are victims of slimy, spongy, bitter mush. Nobody wants to eat slippery vegetables with gritty seeds and acrid hides.
But eggplants can also be the best of what a vegetable can be—crispy [...]
The time has come, the gardener said, to talk of many things… of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, of eggplants and kings. Ok, so, eggplant may not be the most poetic of vegetables, but really, they are fit for kings.
There’s nothing an eggplant couldn’t do, I think, spongy wonder that it is. You slice [...]
If you love the idea of savory summer vegetables steaming in a deep bowl, the scent of herbs and spices rising to your nostrils, you’ve likely tried your hand at ratatouille. But, for as many delicious summer stews you’ve enjoyed, you’ve probably also faced many a limp blob of hot, mushy mass inappropriately called ratatouille.
Perhaps [...]
If I were a 19th century poet, I would spend my summer afternoons on the outskirts of an orchard, watching the clouds pass, nibbling fruit, and limning the virtues of their juices. Alas, I am a modern eater, relegated to her blog—but at least there’s someplace to extol the sweetness of summer. After all, I [...]
There’s something about carrots in the summertime that brings out the bean lover in me. So while I’m on the subject of my favorite legume dishes, let me recall a classic for any season: Cannellini bean dip with garlic, rosemary and a hint of lemon. White beans—bum bum bumbumbum, you make my heart sing. You [...]
When I was twelve, my family took a trip to see the great canyons and deserts of the American West. My mother had planed a voyage to England, but my father vetoed, insisting that before his children traveled abroad, they ought to see their own country—at least the part he loved best. Up until I [...]
There' s something about summer days: long, lazy and ripe. Today I feel like a juicy peach, though not of the courtesan variety. I' m just that happy, rosy and full. Let me tell you why:
I woke up to no dog begging for breakfast. That is to say, I woke up when my body wanted [...]
