summer dessert – In Good Taste

Grilled “All The Berries” Galette

Maris Callahan — Sun, 05 May 2013 16:25:08 +0000

Last week, something tragic happened. Something that has very little to do with a berry galette, but I’ll get to that in a second. Before I get to the punch line, I am going to preface this story with a fact: I have an exceptionally small kitchen. At my disposal, I have two overhead cabinets, one for food alongside another for dishes and glasses. I have two more cabinets underneath the counter that hold an assortment of of pots, pans and gadgets, with some added shelving in the hallway for spices and dry goods. What all of this means is that I use my oven for storage. When I bake with said oven, I precariously balance the contents of my oven on my counter. One fateful day last week, those contents included two Le Creuset baking dishes and toppled to their untimely demise, leaving shards of enameled cast iron scattered across my kitchen floor. It was a Le Creuset suicide and I was powerless to stop it. What I did get out of the deal is this galette. We’ve all heard of “clean out the fridge” dinners where you take your near-expired chicken sausage and last week’s CSA vegetables and […]

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Peach Crumb Bars

Maris Callahan — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:18:29 +0000

Everywhere you look, from the candy aisle at CVS to…well, anything else that tends to overtly display seasonal affection in a commercial manner, you’ll see Fall, Fall and more Fall. Now, this bodes well for me. I like to sleep with my windows open and I glean just enough joy out of a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks for it to be an appropriate small delight as opposed to a pathetic fixation. This also bodes well for the farmers markets and pumpkin farms – everyone is all about apples, squash and gourds from now until Thanksgiving. Finally, it also bodes well for the dental industry (because between caramel apples, maple-flavored everything and pumpkin spice donuts…stop looking at me like that…sweets are abundant and good dental hygiene? Priceless this time of year). I digress. What a season change does not bode well for is summer fruit. While I’m truly not a fan of humidity and triple-digit heat index, I am a fan of fresh berries, stone fruit and melon. Despite the fact that closet is ready for sweaters and I purchased my first squash of the season this Sunday, I’m not quite ready to let go of juicy, slightly overripe summer […]

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Blueberry Peach Crisp with Shortbread Topping

Maris Callahan — Sun, 23 May 2010 23:19:30 +0000

Today was the first really hot day Chicago has had since I’ve lived here. Every time I’ve had a conversation with anyone – from good friends and coworkers to hairdressers and grocery clerks – about being new to the city, they’ve all said the same thing: “if you think you like Chicago now, just wait until the summer. Then, you’ll really fall for it.” I’m not loathe to admit that Fall is my favorite season. You can still wear dresses or go jacket-less in favor of a light sweater but suddenly there’s a comforting chill in the air, leaves start to morph into beautiful colors and the sweaty stickiness that coats us during August suddenly disappears as quickly as it came. Among the things I do love about summer, however, are eating and drinking on restaurant patios (or friends’ patios…hint, hint anyone who has a patio), the smell of suntan lotion, cotton summer dresses, laying poolside and, yes, you had to know where I was taking this one: summer desserts. I’m an ice cream fiend, I eat it year round. So I can hardly classify ice cream as a dessert meant specifically for summer. Fruit pies, crisps and cobblers, though? […]

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South Carolina and Homemade Berry Cobbler

Maris Callahan — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:00:00 +0000

When I was younger I loved souvenirs. I didn’t travel very often throughout my childhood so even a day trip to the beach seemed like reason to celebrate with a t-shirt or snow globe. At one point, my father traveled frequently for business and I thought there was nothing more fascinating than a keychain emblazoned with the Georgia peach or a notepad shaped like a British phone booth. As an adult, I’m slowly but surely racking up frequent flyer miles of my own and I no longer feel tempted by hotel toiletries. Instead, when I’m in a new city or town, I do what any respectable, budget conscious traveler would do. I take pictures. I take photos of my frozen drinks, poolside. I take action shots of grilling in-progress. And I take pictures of the pool on the deck at the Beach Club so I can look at them when I get back to work and think, “I wish I was still laying out in the sun.” On a recent vacation to South Carolina, I purchased the Southern Farmers Market Cookbook, featuring recipes based on produce typically grown in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Tennessee. The book was filled with […]

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