22 April, 2020: For some of us (me included) our pantries need restocking right about now. So if you’re looking to restock AND support local businesses while you’re at it, read on for a few of our recommendations! PANTRY Plimoth Grist Mill – Kim makes incredible stone-ground corn meal, sampe, locally-grown popcorn, and more (we use their cornmeal for our… Read More
20 April, 2020: This week’s shows are all about BREAD!!! We love Maine Grains and Plimoth Grist Mill for flour, grains, cornmeal, etc so if you’re looking to stock up and support a local business while you’re at it, we recommend checking out their online stores! (PS – for Maine Grains, use promo code “homecookingwithayr” for 10% off your order… Read More
13 April, 2020: Check back here for updated program schedule, ingredient lists, and video links for this week’s episodes of In Ayr’s Kitchen – I’ll be keeping it up-to-date as we go along. PREVIOUS EPISODES – episodes 1-5; episodes 6-9; episodes 10-13 Episode 14 – Pineapple upside-down cakeMonday, April 13 @ 4pmWatch here in case you missed it!Ingredients to follow along:– eggs– salt– sugar–… Read More
9 December, 2008: I’m starting to question whether diesel was the way to go. I looked forever to find the right truck, and I paid a bit more than I would have for gasoline. Now it’s not too happy starting up in the cold. Starting to wonder whether we can pull this off all winter. What we really need is… Read More
6 April, 2020: We’re pushing the show back 1 hour so that more of you can tune in live! Shows this week will be at 4pm EST every week day. Check back here for updated program schedule, ingredient lists, and video links for this week’s episodes of In Ayr’s Kitchen – I’ll be keeping it up-to-date as we go along. INFO PREVIOUS… Read More
30 March, 2020: Ayr emailed this to me & Lucia this morning – it’s his grandmother’s original recipe for Wacky Cake, which is going to be this Monday’s episode recipe! Check back here for updated program schedule, ingredient lists, and video links for this week’s episodes of In Ayr’s Kitchen – I’ll be keeping it up-to-date as we go along.… Read More
24 March, 2020: This picture is from a couple years ago, when we were filming a soup video at Ayr’s house – don’t worry, I’m not actually there right now! #socialdistancing If this is the first time you’re hearing about Ayr’s new Youtube channel, go back and read this post I wrote yesterday. It explains a little bit more about… Read More
23 March, 2020: With many restaurants temporarily closing, and with stockpiles of food/raw ingredients at home, a lot of folks are going to be cooking at home during this “hunker down” period. But what the heck do you even do with dried beans? How do you make soup? Or bread? How do you recover from recipe errors, how do you… Read More
16 February, 2009: What do you all think of Coolidge corner? This is one of the areas we’ve been eyeing to open our first fixed location Clover restaurant. With all that is going on good spaces are starting to open. Prices haven’t dropped yet, but at least the spots are starting to come available. The other week Z-Square in Harvard… Read More
19 March, 2020: This post isn’t about food. But it’s about some of the (very boring) stuff we need to be doing to protect our ability to make great food in the future. I’ve been spending the majority of the past 2 days contacting vendors and suppliers and service providers. My pitch is consistent: we want to use your service… Read More
18 March, 2020: Those were the words Chris texted me this afternoon. Pictured above is our “cooling” walk-in. It’s a relatively small walk-in fridge with oversized cooling and a series of glass doors. In normal operations it’s in and out. We pack it from the door side and empty it from behind. Sometimes we turn it 3 times a day.… Read More
17 March, 2020: I’m hours and hours into painstakingly reaching out to the HUGE number of services Clover uses to operate. For all it’s the same thing. (1) We want to use these services as soon as we re-open, (2) we DON’T want to lose all our data and set-up all over again, (3) We CAN’T pay while we have… Read More
16 March, 2020: We all spend so much energy figuring out how to get from where we are to the next place. And at Clover that feels like such an imperative. Clover is trying each day to solve this existential challenge we face: Global warming. But now we’re facing a different more immediate challenge in COVID-19. We’re going to be… Read More
10 September, 2008: A friend turned me on to Henny Penny fryers. They make normal fryers, but specialize in “pressure fryers.” These were developed primarily for fried chicken, and supposedly they do wonders for that. But they have other qualities that caught my interest: 30% lower fuel consumption 10-20% less grease on food More moisture and flavor retained in the… Read More
15 March, 2020: Hi all. Just learned of Massachusetts declaring all restaurants to be closed by Tuesday, except for delivery and take-out. Sometime soon we’re all going to stop feeling surprised by these changes. I don’t know about you but I’m not there yet. We are learning what this means for us. In the meantime all Clover restaurants are open… Read More