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 tomato season yet, although they’re coming up soon… here in Houston at least. I eyeball my little, green fruits every time I come home, weighing them in my mind’s eye, wondering when I’ll have to put up chicken wire to keep the eager squirrels from running off with my loot, as they always [...]
I realize that many people will not give this post much attention and that makes me sad. I feel that cauliflower is much maligned—or at least wildly underappreciated. How is it that such a beautiful thing can be considered so unglamorous? Is it because they look a little bit wan? I’ve thought that myself, I [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
No matter what, I cook on a Sunday. Nothing makes me happier than being by the oven for most of the day, putting up food for the week ahead. There’s something really nurturing about taking care of myself this way: with a little foresight I can have satisfying, comforting food no matter what disasters might [...]
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 [...]
