What's Cooking?
When the 'kids' come to visit, food is Topic A, B and C--and baked goods are always on the menu!
Hello, everyone! Welcome to my first newsletter of 2026. I’m glad you’re here!
So far, it hasn’t been a banner year, at least as far as the state of the country and the world goes. It seems that every day there are new outrages in the news that leave us feeling helpless—but we are not! The folks who joined the ICE Out for Good protests around the country last weekend proved that!
But meanwhile, life goes on—and we’re expecting company!
My son and his wife are coming to visit this week from Japan. A year ago when they flew in, the skies were were thick with ash from the fires that were burning through two communities and threatening several more. I worried that their plane might be diverted because of the smoke and, if that didn’t happen, whether the air would be safe to breathe once they landed.
This year, torrential rains have helped stave off the fire danger, though the devil Santa Ana winds that tore through our 50-foot-high eucalyptus in its aftermath were terrifying. Definitely time for a tree trim!
And that’s just what’s been going on in my neighborhood. We won’t talk about murder in Minneapolis or empire-building in Venezuela. I’m trying to leave the politics to editorial writers and savvy historians like Heather Cox Richardson and stick to writing about food. It’s a great distraction.
And it’s really all the “kids” (well they’re heading toward 40, but they’ll always be kids to me!) want to talk about, specifically the things they hope I’ll make for them—or with them. The carb- and dessert-centric list is growing, so I’ve got to finish writing and get busy. Below are a few things I’ll be making.
There are sweet potato muffins for my son “like the ones you made last year from the Trader Joe’s sweet potatoes I didn’t like,” he said. The recipe was from Allrecipes, with the sugar and oil reduced. I bought a whole bag of Murasaki sweet potatoes at TJ’s. Obviously I’ll have to figure out something else to do with them—maybe pancakes or pie!
There’s a classic carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for my daughter-in-law—no pineapple or raisins, just coconut and walnuts. “I just want it plain,” she tells me. “One layer.” I’m adapting a recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s new cookbook, Dorie’s Anytime Cakes. If it meets my DIL’s approval, I’ll post a picture next time.
Homemade poppy seed-sprinkled challah, left, and loaves of shokupan (milk bread) in a Japanese bakery. There’s challah, braided egg bread, of which they’re both huge fans, and possibly some Japanese milk bread—or shokupan—a tall, fluffy loaf made using a cooked flour and milk paste called yudane in Japanese (tangzhong in Chinese). It’s said to help the bread stay fresh longer. I actually tried using it in a challah; it really works—and improves the flavor too!
I’ve also received a request for potato latkes since the kids missed my Hanukkah party and we were too busy shopping and eating out for me to make them on our recent visit to Japan. There might be some jam-filled rugelach too—another Hanukkah staple they (and everyone else!) seem to crave.
After bragging about the delicious ice cream I made in my rediscovered Cuisinart ice cream maker, there’s now a request for some frozen custard made with cherries and dark chocolate. I can’t believe I actually came across some fresh cherries in January, once again at TJ’s. Of course they’re neither local nor in season, but, hey, it’s for a good cause.
Soup’s on!
Of course muffins, bread, cake and ice cream do not a balanced meal make, so obviously there will be other dishes on the menu. One I would definitely vote for is soup. Even in sunny southern California, it’s chilly enough to warrant making a big pot of it, though in this house we eat it 12 months a year!
The internet has been awash in soup recipes lately. In her latest post, Substack blogger (Between the Layers) and cookbook author Anne Byrn writes about a white bean soup made from dry beans that she calls “the easiest soup in the world.” Like some of the best dishes, it doesn’t require an exact recipe, says Anne—just a mix of ingredients that most of us use when making soup—onions, celery, carrots, garlic, broth, possibly some meat. It sounds like the kind of dish that would, as my mother used to say, “warm the cockles of your heart.”
Speaking of Mom, I recently made one of her old standbys, lentil soup, which I wrote about two years ago. You can find the story and recipe below:
It’s also really easy to spin a soup out of leftovers of various sorts. I made a tasty no-recipe soup from a Pakistani chicken and rice dish I found in the New York Times.
Again, it begins with that magic trio of chopped onion, carrots and celery that the French refer to as mirepoix and that forms the basis of many a soup—and almost any dish. Add this to the leftovers, along with several cups of chicken or vegetable broth or water, other chopped vegetables of your choice, a little tomato paste or sauce, chopped parsley, bay leaves, cumin, salt, pepper and other spices and herbs that complement the leftovers you’re using (in this case, garam masala), simmer for a while, and voilà—a delicious, filling soup! Accompanied by some cornbread or a slice of toasted challah or rye, how can you go wrong?
To market, to market…
Well that’s it for today. All this talk of food has made me hungry! I’m off to the market, grateful the skies are clear once again, glad for the small measure of happiness I can bring to those I love by doing something I find comforting too—cooking and sharing. Is there a way that might translate to solving the world’s woes? I doubt it, but at least it does help keep my mind off the news!
Thanks again for reading, liking, commenting and subscribing. Wishing you joy in life, whatever you do.
See you next time.
Ruth
Latkes, rugelach and challah, all my favorites! Thanks for always making everything sound so delish...I can almost smell the latkes frying. Have a wonderful visit!
Have you ever considered only buying what's in season? I have. It'd mean dialing down the convenience of making what one wants when one wants but it'd also mean getting back to an older time of looking forward to nature's seasonal offerings. Kind of like having seasons (in the Northeast) vs a single season with some temperature variation (California). And sorry to not see any Ruth commentary for a while on my Letters. Hope all is well.