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!
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 [...]
I recently saw a mendicant at the corner of US 59 and Chimney Rock Road, beneath the highly trafficked underpass where the homeless often rest and beg. He was begging. Fortunately, I was prepared, half a bag of unwanted tortilla chips waiting in my passenger’s seat, crisp yellow and ready for the jowls of the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
You know those people who resolve piety in the New Year, embracing soups and fruit juice and brown rice baths? Well I’m not one of them. But I do love soup. It makes me feel warm and clean and hale. This year I was especially in need of some elixing.
It started, as with all great [...]
Where I come from, the weather is pretty cool and the seasons are rarely vague. The transition from spring to summer to autumn to winter and back again is tidy, without a lot of fuzziness in between—except for those May days still plagued by freezing rain or the all-too fleeting Indian summer afternoons that sometimes [...]
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 [...]
My friend Molly has a talent for great food in a flash: Rachel Ray would benefit from a lesson over this gal' s stove. Even though I' ve never had any of Ray-Ray' s reportedly YUMO stoup, I would be totally un-inclined to visit her home for thirty minutes of meal preparation. All that chatter [...]
Mussels are one of my favorite things to order at a restaurant. No meal is ever as fun to eat as a big pot of mollusks: the interactive element is what I like best, pulling at the shells, slurping the mussels and scooping the broth. It' s not especially glamorous, but it really is so [...]
I' m always looking for a new twist on the tomato, especially as my favorite summer fruit begins to wane. I had a request for panzanella this weekend and was delighted to find a recipe in Edible Nutmeg, the Connecticut farmer' s magazine that specializes on local food and produce. I quadrupled the recipe for [...]
