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!
Have you been to Big Sur? If so, you know there are few words to describe its blue-gold beauty. I will say this: walk as much as you can, love the person you are with, and don’t miss the meatball pizza at Big Sur Bakery–a very cozy place for dinner. Go there in the morning, [...]
I have a conflicted relationship with Mark Bittman. Not because I’m jealous of anyone who can actually make a solid living cooking and writing about it, no, no no, certainly I would never hold someone in contempt for that. But what I would hold against someone is writing a cookbook called “How to Cook EVERYTHING,” [...]
I have just finished a short, intense love affair. I am afraid my lover will not be visiting again soon—he’s just too much for a girl to handle. He makes me do crazy things, like sit in the kitchen for hours, hot and red-faced. He takes his time. He makes me sit inside the house, [...]
About midway through my last post and this one, I grew up a little bit. I grew up a lot, actually, more than I ever have in a single day. Who would have thought that putting on a dress, taking a short walk, and eating a piece of cake could be so significant? It seems [...]
I am predisposed to love September. There’s no better season than the onset of fall, I say, with its cool currents slipping in under the warm air; the sound of geese squeaking in the morning, shuttering in their bulbous bodies before they decide to fly away. And nothing beats wild grapes along the side of [...]
Waning blueberries are always my first sign of summer slipping away. I would be sad about it, except that there are so many of my favorite things coming up now, in quantities much larger than I can accommodate… I’m known to overzealously load up on Italian eggplant, heirloom tomatoes, zucchini and basil, so watch out [...]
If a peach in the hand is worth ten in the bush, then a few peaches in a Clafoutis are worth the haul of an entire basket. Usually, I’m unable to drive away from a farmer’s market without devouring at least half of the peaches I’ve procured. I arrive at home, appetite spoiled, lips sticky. [...]
Baby when you call me, you can call me Sal.
When I was young, I had the good fortune of living up the hill from a blueberry patch that belonged to a place called March Farms. Just passed the farm was a pond called Long Meadow, where my family went from morning until evening in the [...]
