I was looking over asmartmouth.com and I just can’t believe we have never posted a yeast bread in the history of the blog. It seems impossible to me. Bread baking is such an intrinsic part of my life. I have been baking my own bread since I was 16, not all the time, but often. In recent history I don’t think that I have bought a loaf of bread in the last two years. We always bake our own. Last Christmas Matt and Anjuli gave me my own flour mill so now I can even grind my own flour. If I had the land I would probably grow my own grain.

If I want something impromptu that I can whip up from start to finish in one hour and still call it homemade bread, something I can offer for lunch to dress up a homemade soup, for example, expecting each and every time I make it to hear oooooh, I make focaccia. I make it with my pizza dough, paint it with olive oil, sprinkle it with minced garlic, rosemary and coarse salt and voila, in six minutes at 500F I have a crusty masterpiece.

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with Sally Fallon or her cookbook Nourishing Traditions. Sally Fallon spent ten years putting together recipes that focused on Old World traditions before cheap and easy were the primary objective of our meals. Her research and inspiration were the provactive studies conducted by a dentist named Weston Price in the 1930s. Dr Price traveled the world to document the teeth and bone structures of different peoples. After extensive research, Price came to the conclusion that people with good bone structure and strong teeth – full, wide jaws and well-formed, even teeth – came from pre-industrialized villages that all had common nutritional threads. The people whose villages had already switched to more processed food tended to have crooked, crowded teeth, narrow jaws and unbalanced features. Dr Price’s own book, Nutritive Degeneration is a fascinating, if dense read, illustrated by smiling faces of people Dr Price encountered in small villages and towns.

The other day it was easy and breezy in Portland and I was missing steamy NY. This is the yin and yang of the journey. As I get farther away from where I’ve been, I am closer to realizing what matters to me. This Portland summer is altogether wonderfully mild… and sometimes that makes me feel complacent and underwhelmed. We’re about to take a plunge and attempt to live in the woods OFF THE GRID for a few months by ourselves. While this is something I have been dreaming about, here I am missing the most urban place on the planet.

I have been a fan of King Arthur Flour for a long time. They have been grinding flour for 200 years and they really seem to have it down. Their organic whole wheat, if treated right and soaked the night before in a slightly acid solution, rises as high as white flour in my experience. They have a huge product line and they offer recipes on line and classes in their headquarters in New England.

A couple weeks ago, our friend Gail brought us some ramps. She had carefully pulled them out by the roots in the woods at the corner of her yard, washed them off, and double bagged them. They sat in our fridge and I wondered what to do! Wild ramps are delightfully potent, sweet and tender but with a good kick, just like the good cousin of a leek would be. In sweet and early spring they are an incredible find. Come late and they will most certainly kick you on your ass. So they sat in the fridge while I thought of pestos and pastas and sauces and stuffings and such things.

We have been making these shockingly gingery ginger cookies since summer. They are head-to-head with my other favorite ginger cookie, the ginger snap. We’d been looking for thick, chewy, and gingery cookies (but not so much it burns) for a long time. I’m a longtime fan of 101cookbooks.com, and Heidi has definitely found a winner with these triple ginger cookies. Instead of pondering the ideal source of ginger (dried, crystalized, or fresh), why not use them all? Why not indeed. Ginger has long been considered a good way to whet the appetite. So why not have these before and after dinner?

By now know this base recipe by heart, but like to change its embellishments every time. In the spirit of Thanksgiving we made ‘em a little sweet, adding in the warmth of winter spices and plumped currants. Slathered with butter and eaten over the cooling rack, these no-fuss morsels held their own even though our attention was focused on tomorrow’s more high-maintenance eats.

I have always wanted to make scones with heat. Well, Matt obliged this weekend and baked some. We were definitely missing out. These scones are fluffy, a little spicy and with some bite from the cheddar and finish smoothly with a taste of rosemary. I am digging this spicy little wake-up call.

Everything you can do with apples is excellent, but mom knows best. This one is short and sweet, like the rest. Although, I have to admit coring the apple is a bitch. Could there be a special kitchen tool for this? The Empires we used a wonderful fluffy texture once out of the oven. Serve it a la mode and be impressed with your lack of effort.