It would be an exaggeration to say that I’ll add cardamom to anything – but only slightly.
Truly, I love most of the classic baking spices. Cinnamon sparkles on the tongue, nutmeg seduces with its alluring perfume, allspice dresses up the simplest cake, ginger adds a delicious fire. But cardamom has a special grip on me.
So I add it to everything. I add it to oatmeal, to fruit compote, to coffee.
I love dessert. I’ll always ask for a dessert menu at a restaurant, and I’m disappointed when the only options are coffee and a scoop of ice cream. A bakery crawl is my idea of a solid weekend plan. My freezer is always – always – stocked with cookie dough and ice cream.
And yet, whenever I get a sweetened drink from a coffee shop, I almost always think that it’s far too sweet – cloyingly sweet, distractingly sweet, off-puttingly sweet.
Cooking Trends in the Pandemic It’s a common refrain that people have formed a new bond with their kitchens during the pandemic. In the early days, as restaurants closed and many of us lost jobs or started working from home, my Twitter feed was abuzz with interest in the kinds of slow kitchen projects that keep you ducking in and out of the kitchen all day. Suddenly there was abundant time at home to simmer a slow-cooking pot of beans or bake sourdough.