“They’ll keep,” my mom reassured me once I told her how I’d accidentally bought seven pounds of golden beets from the local farm collaborative. This is a bit of a problem for me: I have a hard time judging proportions. I once accidentally bought nine cubic yards of soil for a garden.  While some might find this to be a nightmare scenario, my love of beets went into overdrive. (I mean, I did name this blog after them.) The first few pounds we juiced in the juicer I picked up this fall through the Buy Nothing Northampton Facebook Group. After we cleaned up the kitchen, I roasted another th ..read more

For Rich’s birthday (not to be confused with Father’s Day or our anniversary, all which happen within a week of each other) I made strawberry-peach-basil shortcakes and shared the recipe for it in this week’s There is a Season column ..read more

This summer started with a furlough. It’s not an ideal situation, but I’m trying to make the most of it. Introducing my new cooking column – There is a Season – in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. My column runs on Saturdays, but you can find me online any day. If you like what you see, consider buying a subscription and helping me support local journalism.  If you were wondering, it was my editor who came up with the name. He offered me a few, but I loved There is a Season because it’s punny and so true. It also reminds me of Ecclesiastes, and since one of my degrees is actually Bible, it ma ..read more

I’ve received a number of requests for recipes I’ve posted to my Instagram account with some folks even asking for video demonstrations. I took vacation time for Passover, and today I offer you Cheap Beets’ first ever video. It’s for zucchini ricotta fritters, something I make every year for Passover. Enjoy ..read more

I am not usually a fan of spicy foods, but I do make exceptions. One of them is green papaya salad, which I will order whenever I see it on a menu at a Thai restaurant. Green papaya salad is one of the reasons I keep coming back to the Lowell Folk Festival, although the last time we were there it was too spicy for me. Our friend Dan ended up eating it. He’s spent years in Southeast Asia and didn’t think it was spicy. He was less prepared for two straight hours of whining from Beatrix about a balloon, which somehow didn’t phase us! Amazing what you get used to. I haven’t posted a green papaya ..read more

“Are you reusing a tea bag?” Rich just asked me as I poured hot water into a mug. Indeed, I am. That’s a trick I picked up from my stepdad Max, one of many food hoarding behaviors I realized recently trace back to him. A lot of them stem from the fact that he, and my mom, were both children of Holocaust survivors. Max’s parents met and married in a displaced person camp. My mom was born on a farm in Provence, where her family was in hiding after fleeing Germany in the 30s.  Being raised by Children of Survivors means I’ve been practicing for unprecedented events like this my whole life ..read more

The new year has come and gone, and so has Chanukah and Christmas, two holidays that filled our house with guests and lots of gifts for the girls. We had our bathroom floor replaced before the break, and now we, and the contractors know, that the pipes are in the wall, rather than the floor. Live and learn.  We hosted a latke bash for the last night of Chanukah, and served latkes made with veggies from our winter CSA: sweet potato, potato, and celery root and carrot. We also used potatoes Lilli planted with her kindergarten at the farm at her school last year. They weeded and composted ..read more

Rich and the girls went on a corn maze adventure last Sunday, and somehow brought home EIGHT pumpkins at the end of the day. Two were painted by the girls, and we’re halfway through carving the two big ones into jack-o-lanterns: But the small sugar pumpkin, whose stem Lilli accidentally broke off, was roasted immediately and is now pumpkin pudding. I suggest you do the same with your sugar pumpkins.  To rescue the broken pumpkin, we cut it in half lengthwise and removed the seeds and stringy guts with an ice cream scoop. Then we roasted the pumpkin, cut-side down and brushed with ol ..read more

I did a quick glance through the past few posts that I managed to get up on this site, and I’m slightly embarrassed to realize they are all desserts. And what’s more, I came to tell you about our local and sustainable Rosh Hashana, with a recipe for a scrumptious carrot cake.  Lest you think we eat dessert all day long, I will instead share a recipe I’ve been meaning to post for months now. It’s actually a recipe that I’ve already shared, but with enough tweaks that it is a completely different beast. It’s now the best darn tofu I’ve had in my life.  Remember the special, special t ..read more

The heat was on us like five bullies, even in the shade of the tree in the front yard. But the line-up of little sluggers didn’t seem to care. They were waiting to take their swings at the unicorn piñata hanging from the lowest branch. As the final blow spilled erasers, glow sticks, kazoos, and temporary tattoos onto the lawn, one of the grown-ups yelled out, “Call Alex Cora, we have a new slugger the Sox need!” But let’s back up a month, when our younger daughter, Beatrix, turned 4. June is a crazy month for us, full of birthdays, Father’s Days, and our anniversary. So the 4th birthday party ..read more