Desserts
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When Washington Baked the World’s Largest Strawberry Shortcake
It’s strawberry season! Our favorite strawberry grower, Klicker’s, in Walla Walla, Washington, announced last summer that it was going out of business after 107 years of growing berries. Much to our happy surprise,…
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The Surprising History Behind “as American as Apple Pie”
How a phrase that didn’t exist until 1924 became an iconic food metaphor When I give talks about my book, people often ask where the phrase “as American as apple pie” came from.…
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The Presidential Scandal that Spawned Two Desserts: Part 1
It’s President’s Day, the perfect time to dive into the origins of two popular 1970s desserts: Watergate Cake with Cover-up Frosting and Watergate Salad. Both take their name from Richard Nixon’s infamous Watergate…
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Debunking Viral Recipes: Water Pie
I enjoy watching cooking videos. In recent years, content creators have recreated several historic recipes with results that range from delicious to disgusting. While these videos are highly entertaining, the historian in me…
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Betty Crocker’s Christmas Cookies
Merry Christmas! It’s the time of year for spending time with family and friends, and for some of us, lots of baking. We have our holiday favorites: rolled sugar cookies, ginger snaps, pecan…
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Huckleberry Season
Not to brag, but here in the Northwest, we have an abundance of fresh fruit. From June through October, we are blessed with strawberries, raspberries, cherries, apricots, peaches, blackberries, pears, and apples. So…
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The Hundred Dollar Dinner
“Can one man eat a hundred dollars’ worth of food at one meal without making a pig of himself?” M.W. Mount – New York Tribune, 1908 That’s the question journalist M.W. Mount poses…
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Sucaryl
Happy Halloween! On a day when children are going to be loaded with sugar, I thought it would be fun to take a trip into the spooky world of sugar substitutes. Many sugar…
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