PRODUCT: Grow Your Own Tea

If you live in hardiness zones 8-10—the southern United States—and have a spot with full sun, you can grow your own tea with plants from Burpee. One individual commenting on the Burpee website had success in Zone 6. Here’s the USDA map of hardiness zones. Tea, Camellia sinensis, is a perennial plant. The same plant…
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TIP OF THE DAY: Chocolate Ice Cubes In Vanilla Milk Or Cocktails

Today’s tip might be a natural for Valentine’s Day, but we like it even more for the cold drinks of summer. These chocolate ice cubes are the brainchild of the Parisian chocolatier Jean-Paul Hévin. His Summer Chocolate Ice Cubes are simply a chocolate ice cream recipe that gets poured into ice cube trays instead of…
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RECIPE: Strawberry Shortcake – Tiramisu Fusion

[1] Today’s recipe: an Italian spin on strawberry shortcake (photo courtesy King Arthur Flour). [2] You can buy strawberries year-round, but summer strawberries are (no surprise) the sweetest (photo courtesy California Strawberries). A traditional strawberry shortcake combines strawberry, whipped cream and biscuits. It might have been a way to use leftover biscuits (photo courtesy Driscoll’s…
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PRODUCT: A New Manual Coffee Grinder

Everything is cyclical, even mundane household appliances like the coffee grinder. In centuries past, coffee beans were ground manually. Depending on your age, your great-grandmother ground beans in a rectangular wood or metal mill (or combination) with a ceramic burr. The grains fell into a drawer underneath the mechanism. But technology marches on: first to…
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FOOD FUN: Lumberjack Cake

This impressive Lumberjack Cake was created by Elizabeth Marek of Artisan Cake Company of Portland, Oregon, and author of Visual Guide to Cake Decorating. Another of her works of art is the Lumberjack Cake, inspired by her husband, who chopped down their Christmas tree in a lumberjack jacket. Jenny Keller of Jenny Cookies Bakeshop in…
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