a creative and tasty competition

Things have been a little nutso lately, and I completely blanked on telling you where I got the recipe for homemade crackers. Sunset, naturally. It's from their new book called The One-Block Feast.

A couple years ago, Sunset's food editor Margo True was kind enough to invite me down to the Sunset ranch for an al fresco lunch that inspired the original One-Block feast article. Let me tell you, eating cucumber deviled eggs as the chickens that laid the eggs softly clucked nearby was quite the treat. And that was only the first course. It was a warm, slow, languid afternoon of inspiring food and conversation as we moved from the garden to the wine cellar to the outdoor patio.

Now the Sunset team has turned the article into a book. And the particular greatness of this book is that it’s divided into seasons, and alongside each season’s recipes are garden plans for the season, as well as plant varieties and tips for planting, watering and harvesting – drawing from the long knowledge and experience of the their garden team.

They sent me a copy and I've already made a couple things: the crackers, and kale colcannon for St Paddy's Day. And it turns out you can get in on the action. The book just went on sale and to celebrate, Sunset is holding a DIY competition for gardener-entertainers. That’s you, right? You can get the details here but hurry, you only have a couple days to dream up your creative and tasty entry. 

summercraft: travel pantry

The other weekend, Sarah and I came up the best idea that launched a furiously happy round of high-fives: what about creating an adorable little kit to bring camping or when you rent a house and don’t know whether the cupboards will be bare? It stinks to have to buy a redundent pantry when you're away on vacation. But you also don’t want to lug everything with you. So what about some kind of sweet travel mini-pantry with smaller portions of the items you use most?

Genius! We made margaritas and wrote down all the great things to include.

Fast-forward to my arrival home. I found a perfect case at a flea market, and started collecting miniatures of what we had planned. Then the glory came to a screeching halt. I cracked open the recent Martha Stewart magazine, and my gaze fell on an impeccablely-assembled basket of kitchen items to a rental house. Dang it all!

Well, I went ahead and created this kit anyway. Because frankly, we were too amped up about the idea to pull back. And because I think our miniatures are even more practical. So I give you the traveling pantry:

I found this beat-up case at a flea market the other weekend, with a perfect top shelf for the smaller items, and a deeper bottom below for stand-up stuff. I added a little pizazz with a Lotta Jansdotter pre-cut stencil.

Then, the goods: go-to spices poured into smaller jars, some fancy salt, mustard, maple syrup, even a gorgeous tin of lobster pate! Dried mushrooms, flour, sugar, vinegar and oil. And of course, champagne.