Something Good from Helvetia →

Helvetia, West Virginia, is not a town you can just happen upon. About 30 miles south of Buckhannon and 40 miles southwest of Elkins (you know where those are, right?), the journey to Helvetia is a long and winding mountainous route up County Route 46. Even when you get there, it would be easy to blow right through town, were it not for the Swiss Alpine–style buildings peppered along the roadside.

The village was settled in 1869 by Swiss immigrants, many of them craftsmen, who had immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, during the Civil War. In Brooklyn, they formed a society of Swiss and German speakers called the Gruetli Verein, and together sought a place where they could live freely and practice their respective art forms. One of their members had done some surveying in West Virginia and spoke of the large tracts of land, beautiful mountains, and plentiful forests of game. The group eventually found cheap land for sale in the area and decided to establish a village, calling it Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland.

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Fat Tuesday: The Many Different Doughnuts Of Mardi Gras →

The history of doughnuts is intrinsically linked to the celebration of Mardi Gras. "Fat Tuesday" — the Christian day of revelry and indulgence before the austere season of Lent — features dough deep-fried in fat as its main staple.

Among the first foods to be deep-fried were Roman scriblita, a precursor to today's doughnuts and fritters. Originating in the medieval era, most Christian European traditions have developed a version of fried dough for Shrove Tuesday (another name for the day before Lent starts). The rich treats presented a way to use up all of the butter, sugar and fat in the house prior to the self-denying diets of Lent. Traditionally it was an opportunity for indulgence, a day when, once a year, communities would go through the labor-intensive and expensive process of deep-frying in order to partake in a luxurious treat.

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Get Freshly Minted This Holiday Season →

When I was growing up, my uncle Richard farmed mint. In the late summer, he and his crew would mow the mint fields like hay and collect the leaves in enclosed wagons, then drive them down to the still, where they would seal them and pump them full of steam. The steam caused the oil in the leaves to turn to vapor, which re-liquefied when pushed through a condenser.

I have memories of driving out to the farm when Richard was distilling that season's crop into oil, catching whiffs of the mint on the air miles before we arrived. Then we'd pile in the farm truck and head down the dirt roads to the still, the mint essence becoming stronger and stronger until we were finally lifted over the boiling vat for the most intense sensory experience. One inhalation of the mint oil completely cleared out our sinuses and must have prevented us from catching the cold through the winter — a special Indiana farm remedy.

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Cheese Pies and Kebabs Keep Armenian Heritage Alive →

For 65 years, the St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church has been holding The Armenian Fall Food Festival in the basement of their church in the Friendship Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C. There in the serving line, women parish members dish out steaming lamb kebab, fresh tepsi boreg—phyllo dough stuffed with feta and mozzarella, and heaping ladles of hummus and eech—a vegetarian bulgur salad. In the next room, where patrons of all ages and backgrounds eat together at round tables, sits a long “bake table” filled with Armenian pasties including baklava, kataifi—shredded phyllo dough with sweet cheese or walnuts and simple syrup and haskanoush—a walnut roll topped with simple syrup.

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Fresh Out of the Coven: Pentagram Pie →

Pentagrams are an ancient symbol, but lately they’ve been popping up everywhere from forearms to TV shows to um…bikinis. I too seem to have been caught under the pentagram’s spell; I've recently developed an affinity for the encircled, five-pointed star.

The pentagram carries different spiritual meanings depending on the cultures in which it appears (from Mesopotamia to Freemasonry, Christianity to the occult), but in the Tarot, the "pentacles" correspond astrologically with Taurus, along with the other Earth signs Virgo and Capricorn. In general, the symbol is associated with Mother Earth, craft, the accumulation of knowledge, physicality, and tradition. It also represents stability, grounding forces, and feminine power—ever noticed the 5-pointed star on Wonder Woman’s projectile crown? And if those weren’t enough reasons to start brandishing a pentagram medallion, there's also the British folk-rock band Pentangle, one of my favorites, whose name comes from the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Night, and whose album covers sport some of the best pentagram designs I’ve seen.

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Cobbled Together: American Fruit Desserts

Cobbler. I didn't understand the dessert until I understood the word.

A professional "cobbler" is often thought of as a shoemaker and repairman, but a truecobbler is only a mender of shoes. A cordwainer is the more masterful footwear maker.

A cordwainer would not want to be called a cobbler. And a delicately latticed pie would not want to be mistaken for the less artful dessert that's thrown or "cobbled" together with disparate bits of fruit and pastry, whether it's called a cobbler, crisp, crumble, pandowdy or buckle. Though a cobbler or crisp may not be as pretty as a fresh pie or a new shoe, the result is just as functional, enjoyable and more economical, at least in terms of time and effort.

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State pie project: Michigan’s tart cherries

It’s getting to be that gloriously overwhelming time of year when just about everything is ripe. So much fruit, so much pie-making potential. Going back and forth among the blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and stone fruits, I remembered that I had some Michigan friends coming to my house in a few days. Of course. Cherries. I had to get tart cherries.

Michigan, specifically Traverse City, is the cherry capital of the world. The state grows about 75 percent of the nation’s tart cherries. Down here in the Mid-Alantic where I live, tart cherries are harder to come by and the season is rather fleeting. All the more reason, then, to buy a few pints at the farmers market, bring them home and put them in a pie.

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Outside the Pizza Box: Chicago's New Pie Scene →

As we prepare to celebrate Pi(e) Day on Thursday (Congress established March 14 as a day to honor both the mathematical constant, 3.14, and our nation's favorite dessert), we find a burgeoning pie scene in Chicago. And it's not of the deep-dish variety.

In a busy kitchen in the West Town neighborhood, large trays of deep, round plates are being pulled out of the oven. From the golden crust inside, steam rises and fills the air with enticing aromas that set bellies grumbling. It's not Chicago pizza pie, but fresh apple pie from Hoosier Mama Pie Co., a small, vintage diner-style pie shop owned by pastry chef Paula Haney.

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Belgian Sweets Not Just for Sinterklaas →

Though my grandmother Georgette was born in the United States, she is half Belgian (Flemish) and half French. On top of the cabinets in her blue kitchen you'll find a little Dutch village of porcelain houses. Above the sink are miniature figures of the Statue of Liberty, Manneken Pis and the Eiffel Tower — representations of her three nationalities. In her Delft cookie jar you'll find speculaas (also called speculoos) — the Dutch windmill-shaped gingersnap-like cookie traditionally eaten on St. Nicholas Day.

Although my grandmother has speculaas on hand year-round, St. Nicholas Day, which was last week (Dec. 6), reminded me of our family tradition. We would get together with my grandmother for a little celebration, with gifts from Sinterklaas in our shoes, Belgian chocolates and, of course, her homemade speculaas.

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Five Ideas for Great Holiday Pies →

The holidays are one of the best times of year for baking, in my opinion. Citrus is in season, cranberries are readily available, and parties and celebrations with family and long-lost or not-so long-lost friends call for a bit of decadence in the form of nuts and chocolate, caramel and whipped cream. Here is a selection of five relatively easy pies made with seasonal ingredients (for the most part) for your holiday dessert tables.

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