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 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 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. [...]
On Saturday mornings I tend to find myself underslept, overcaffinated and scrapping scrambled eggs from the sides of a frying pan while cursing the day my dog was born. I love Lupe five days a week for her role as my toe-licking alarm. How else could a person pleasantly rise at 6am? I stick my [...]
I’ve just discovered an incredible new kind of egg: the newest kind. I’ve been buying local dozens from a farmer at the Houston Farmer’s Market who gives them to me in boxes that I bring back to him the following week. Nothing is wasted except the freckled shells. Which are sometimes so pretty that I [...]
