Come Home to Cooking (inactive old site)

Small Hands-On Classes

For beginners and experienced cooks

• 
• • Inspire your cooking.
  • Master essential culinary concepts.
  • Conserve your time, energy and resources.
  • Share the joy of living and eating well.

Important Notice: Come Home to Cooking Website Changes

Since the launch of our website in 2008, we've received many compliments about our online content. Now we are working to make it even more interactive and easy to use—please excuse any construction dust.

Our new site is still at www.comehometocooking.com, but you may need to update your bookmarks for links beyond the home page.

[You are probably at this site due to a bookmark you have (or an outdated search listing) to a page or post on this earlier edition of the Come Home to Cooking website—THIS EDITION OF THE SITE HAS BEEN RETIRED.

TO GET TO THE CURRENT WEBSITE, simply go to www.comehometocooking.com and you will be on the home page of the current active site.

If you have out-of-date bookmarks, locate the page(s) you want to bookmark on the new site, and create new bookmarks. Delete your old bookmarks—old bookmarks will have the characters "/come_home_to_cooking/" in the URL.]

So here's to staying current and connected!  Kay Baumhefner

Sugar 'n' Spice

 

Ever notice how desserts equals stressed spelled backwards? Is that why we reach for sweets when we’re frazzled? Or perhaps it’s a subliminal reminder that we are the ones getting it backwards. That usually when we most need to take good care of ourselves is when we’re least likely to. Which is why it was so nourishing to steep ourselves in the recent winter soups and seafood stew class. And also why I plan to start off the New Year with a restorative series on Mother Stocks and Broths. 

But right now in this season of soulful treats and merrymaking, I hope we all find a way to slip into the light of our childhood night kitchens. To feel the enchantment. To make it and bake it and eat it and share it. To be dazzled instead. To come home to cooking for sugar and spice and everything nice. To stay in that place where nothing’s the matter. 

At least for a while. 

Wishing you comfort and joy.  

Special Thanks to My Stone Soup Crew

For Working So Joyfully to Create Good Food and Fun for All

at the ProjectHERE Artists & Farmers event last Sunday, Oct. 3, at CornerStone in Sonoma.

This Stone Soup crew of seven healthy and enthusiastic volunteers gathered together by my "sounds awesome, let's do it!" son not only showed up, but listened attentively, followed directions, worked independently while coordinating as a team, did a beautiful job in a fraction of the time it might have taken, took good care of each other and me, talked, laughed, ate, drank and helped clean up! Can you imagine? It doesn't get better than this. Thank you, thank you.

Kay at CornerStone in Sonoma

 

making Stone Soup for all

at the Artists and Farmers event

this SUNDAY, OCT. 3 from 11-4

 

Kay Baumhefner will bring to life the inspiring Stone Soup legend of cooperation by gathering together just enough contributions from the generous vegetable gardens and participating farmers to fill and light the fire under our empty pot in the CornerStone village square barn.  

By the end of the afternoon we can meet up there, where Kay and her crew of helpers will have chopped, stirred and simmered everything into a savory harvest soup ready to ladle out for all of us to share in this celebration of realized abundance.

Read all about it

See you there!

Harvest Boxes from County Line

Freshly Picked Organic Vegetables from COUNTY LINE HARVEST

What: An assorted box of about 12 bunched items, including salad & braising greens, root vegetables, herbs & seasonal crop specialties with cooking tips. 

When: Available for you to pick up every Wed afternoon from 2-4pm

Where: Our cornerstone place here at Come Home to Cooking [Please contact me if you need directions.]

How: To reserve your box email County Line Harvest [clharvest@gmail.com] no later than 10am each Wed. [You only need to sign up for one week at a time.]

$25 per box, cash only & payable when you pick up.

Why: To support our local community while making it both easier and more economical for all of us to be able to share the joy of living and eating well.

So Come Join the Fun!

 

Harvest Season 2010 Class Schedule

Cycles of Celebration...

In a recent conversation with both friends and fellow cooks about why the same recipe usually turns out at least a little different every time you make it, I thought about how those magical variations hold true with same subject classes as well. Now that Come Home to Cooking is gliding into its fourth year, we’ve been doing this long enough for certain topics to rise to the top and establish themselves as seasonal favorites. Recipes and menus we can all look forward to coming around again and again. It’s reassuring. Like bread rising with the anticipation and fulfillment of the harvest. Like the press of grapes into wine, wild mushroom forays, crab season, blood oranges, the first asparagus, real spring greens, mustard fields, cherries, peaches and tomatoes. So we begin again here with sweet tomato madness and other ripe companions, moving on to balanced fresh salads, slow savory braises and crisp apple pastry. Then it’s time for our cassoulet, big pots of soup and the holiday bash. Cycles of celebration for all that we do have in this time and place together. Every class is different, even same subject ones. I love to watch them take on lives of their own—shaped and made possible by what’s in the market garden, by whether it rains or shines, by the whim of the day, by whatever life had in mind. By each and every one of you.