It's Peachy and a Donut Story

While waiting for the donuts for sale I walked around the farmers market and ate my share of peaches. It's amazing how many varieties of peaches are out there. When going to the market tell the farmer what you are doing with the peaches. Canning, pie, just eating.. Some are sweeter, some are for baking where they dont turn to mush (just like apples). Here are a few recipes for the fuzzy fruit. 

Oak Park. IL Saturday Farmers Market

Peach Salsa

Peach and Chilie Chutney

Donut Story?

Every Saturday in the summer the basement of the Pilgrim Church on Lake becomes a whirl wind of activity. The church rotates the use of the kitchen every week but the product is the same.. Some of the best donuts around. Hot and light with a little bit of a spice. They serve 3 varieties. Plain, Powdered and Cinnamon. You line up to indulge in the little cake donuts. They are only .75 cents! When I arrived at 6:30 they were just setting up the chairs for the "donut club" to sit with their weekly donut and coffee. I was the 4th in line. At 7am about 70 people had arrived. They at first did not have the plain. The lady in front of me wanted 4 dozen plain. She was set aside and the line started to move again. The donuts are shoved out in big tubs that hold about 10 dozen. The kitchen is below street level so they use a window to serve them through. I will return!

I could have eaten a dozen! 

Tomorrow I am off to see what the fuss about is at the Donut Vault!

A Jump Start.. Monday TV Show in SD

Monday August 8th is National Zucchini Day!

I will be on San Diego Living 6 from 9am-10am making

Zucchini Pineapple Muffins

Sour Cream Cheese Brownies

Today I was making a batch of Cream Cheese Brownies and 2 batches of Jams: Raspberry and Blackberry. Now I have all of the jams done for the year. Peach and Strawberry to go with the two today.  I did go past the orchards and picked up a huge bag of oranges.. Hummm Orange Marmalade? Got some Lemons too. I think fresh fruit in the kitchen looks great.. 

Here is the Sour Cream Cheese Brownie Recipe for you

National Watermelon Day!

Yes today is National watermelon day.. The problem is that the melons of today taste nothing of the melons of yesteryear.. Since they bio produce the melons without seeds they took the taste with them. I wish that we had flavorful watermelons like years past. Now I understand why when working at Disney they had to request seedless watermelons. (You have to be a few steps ahead of kids.. Eating a wedge of melon on the sky buckets! Not good) Now how does one have a seed spitting contest now? 

I love using watermelon in other ways then just eating.. Here is a wonderful salsa recipe. 

Watermelon Salsa

and Watermelon Rum Punch

Enjoy! 

National Cheesecake Day! And the Golden Girls.

Saturday is National Cheesecake Day! Many of you know that my first book in 2001 was “125 Best Cheesecake Recipes” then a few years later followed up “The Cheesecake Bible” Back when I was “pitching” the proposal around to publishers I felt that I would get a book deal fast (it took about a year) Why wouldn’t I? I had created the cheesecakes for the Golden Girls! (More on that later). When at Disney I would produce over 200 cheesecakes a day.. So I was perfect for the book!

Golden Girls. When asked in class people are very interested in the taping process.  The show was taped live on Friday Nights.. the first years it was done over at the Sunset-Gower stages then moved closer to Paramount at the Ren-Mar Stages. Friday was the night! The order would come into the Prop Dept for 7 cheesecakes delivered to the stage and placed into the working (only thing working on the set) refrigerator. If you recall the fridge door would open out so only the person opening it could see in. The fridge would have space for 7 cheesecakes all on the same identical platter. The veggie drawers were packed with Coke, Diet Coke and bottles of water. These drinks were used by the “warm up” guy as incentives for the studio while they were entertained while waiting for the show to be taped. I only saw the show taped twice. It was Friday and sometimes the taping could go late. Once on Monday after seeing the show I asked the prop manager why they needed 7 cheesecakes. They had only needed one and the take was perfect.. But why 7? He informed me that I am gone when the taping is happening and if something did go wrong they had 6 backups. Sounded perfect! But then he did let me know that in honestly they probably could to it with 3-4.. But 7 could feed the entire cast and crew for a job well down.

Here is a clip from one of the shows.

Never Before and Never in Print.. My Recipe..

Golden Girls Cheesecake..

Thank you for being a friend!

And if you would like to purchase one of my cheesecake books personalized you can here:

Cheesecake Books