Toast at Home and Away

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Toast at Home and Away

Cook good food at home! Classes, Culinary & Cultural Trips, Catering, Food Tours, Recipes, and more Learn in your home or mine, alone or with friends.

We give you the confidence to enjoy cooking, tips and tools to make it easier, and ideas to expand your repertoire.

29/09/2024

Toast Trip to Collioure last week...
A gathering of 6 intrepid, fun people came to explore the Mediterranean Pyrenees with me. Staying at the serene , my guests met weavers and cooks, a winemaker and artists, a vinegar maker and an archeologist. We walked, we ate, we laughed a lot. We climbed mountains and dove into the sea. We even played a round-robin of tennis. Amazing travelers, game for everything!

04/05/2024

Francophile? Check out this substack and interview with me about making the move to France. Thanks, Sacha Cohen and "A Good Vintage!"

A new series featuring inspiring women of a certain age who have taken the leap and made a new life in France.

18/02/2024

06/08/2023

Harvesting sweet pea seeds for next year
Returning volunteers (3rd time for Cléo, right and 2nd for Lis) after the Mirabelle harvest
Gerard digging a trench for the geothermal heating/cooling system
A little break in Provence, with dear friends from California
Swim at a cove outside Hyères
Last night with neighbors and Brooklyn friends for more swimming, a vegan feast and movie night. We watched an obscure film about longing with Simone Signoret, Chère Inconnue.

10/06/2023

Views from here

Mountain weather is our master and muse

Supermarket espadrilles mean summer is here

Cherry picking, then jam making

Blanco getting relief from the flies; Jazz only lets him poke his head into her apartment!

Annual spring Iris explosion

Visit from an old friend. We hadn’t spent this much time together since 1982! Took him on a favorite hike-swim and laughed a lot.

26/03/2023

Wild, miniature narcissus picked on my evening walk with Guapo. Plum trees blossoming. Seedlings popping up. Days getting longer. Spring joy 🌸😍🪴

01/03/2023

A little slice of heaven with my beloved parents and sister

29/01/2023

January 2023
Huge snow (iced in for the last week; thank goodness for a full larder), family and friends for New Years, hay delivery for the hungry horses, roof almost finished on the Mas, an all-day tennis tournament with our dear, new neighbor friends, and daily walks on the land. I love every season here.

17/12/2022

Work in progress. This is where things are this week. Most of the roof has been replaced on the old Mas (farmhouse).

When Rémy and his team got to what was our kitchen for the past 3 years, we found the ancient beams damaged and urgently needing to be replaced. Gulp. The upside is we gained about 2 feet of ceiling height in that room.

Gerard and I pulled up the withering tomato, pepper, tomatillo and basil plants in the vegetable garden. The compost pile is steamy and high. Baby spinach and broccoli rabe are coming up. They’ll be ready in spring.

Next week, it’s cookie-making time to prepare Christmas presents for neighbors and friends. Short days. Quiet and slow rhythm. Anticipation is building for the arrival of our kids, in time to celebrate the new year together. We can’t wait to show them all the changes here. And hug them relentlessly!

03/12/2022

Renovation Cat

27/11/2022

A precious few days in Paris. Thanksgiving with treasured friends from Brooklyn. Fresh curry leaves found at my favorite Indian grocer, Passage Brady. Whisks, ladles, copper saucepans, etc at Dehillerin to indulge my love of culinary temples.

I wandered for hours, appreciating my former hometown, seeing art, dining with old friends. Paris is much more bicycle friendly than it was in the 80s-90s, when and I used to “ride our ponies” everywhere, helmet-less and wild. Mostly, I got around by bike this trip but also admired the quiet and clean of the métro, the views from bus, and of course the multiple thousands of steps I logged.

What a gift, to have Paris. To be able to get there on a fast train. To eat foods of the world in this cosmopolitan city. To hug my dear friends. Merci mille fois!

22/11/2022

November vibes. Hug a tree. Hug someone you love. Hug yourself.

08/10/2022

Ivy battle scene.

We are a few weeks away from beginning renovations on this old building. Doing everything in our power to preserve the charm *and* make it an energy-efficient, comfortable place to live.

For 3 years now we have coexisted with spiders, crumbling walls and invasive vegetation. We still love you, nature. We just want to establish better boundaries 😉

24/09/2022

End of a whirlwind New York visit
1/ Union Sq farmer’s mkt blossom
2/ Central Park walk
3/ Diane Arbus show at David Zwirner gallery
4/ how I feel saying goodbye to my elderly parents today (📸 Arbus)
5/ Central Park
6/ First day of Fall at mkt
7/ View from parents’ apt
8/ Outstanding meal at S. Indian resto with my beloved food loving Curry leaf cocktail!!!
9/ Reunion with the Upper West Side mafia. I went to preschool with these people, at West Side Montessori School founded by our parents in 1963
10/ Three founders, L to R, my Dad, LF Boker Doyle, Desmond Heath, Gilman Burke. All in their late 80s and 90s, nine of the original 12 founders joined us for a weekend celebration. What a gift!

huntington

13/09/2022

Wedding weekend fun.

My precious friend married .shell in Tivoli, NY before a throng of admirers.

Mismatched plates and glasses culled from months of yard sales. Poems written by offspring. Songs performed by siblings. Vows that brought the guests to tears of joy.

Friends made things, creating a potluck, homemade celebration. It perfectly reflected the expansive, inclusive love that Jenny and Kent embody.

I made 180 cupcakes, like some bake sale mom gone wild. Had too much fun to take photos (thanks girlfriends for sharing yours with me). Grinded and bumped on the dance floor like it was 1999.

A love fest. Thank you for wrapping us in your love, dearest J & K!

03/09/2022

Good morning, Jazz

31/08/2022

Today, in garden news

25/08/2022

A bit of nature from here

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Monday morning. Jazz on strike because her man-in-waiting, chief groomer and carrot deliverer is away for a few days. It’s just me and the animals. Awoken by Clément, one of the workers putting up walls in the Résidence d’Artistes, at our front door. Guapo’s bark is the doorbell. Clément says there’s a horse blocking him from driving up the driveway. Carrots, a few rough pats (that’s how Jazz likes it) and she ambles along. Interior walls going up today!

Riding the last wave of summer

It’s really happening! We’re getting ready to renovate the first structure here at Mas Baills. After almost 2 years of planning, designing and permitting, it’s a go. The scaffolding went up this week. Right before August Vacation, that sacred French tradition. Took 3 men two days to put it up. Excellent views from the “terrace,” walking around the perimeter of the house. When everyone comes back refreshed in September, (re)construction begins.

Nettle soufflé! 🥚 Lots and lots of nettles here. A sign of good soil, I’m told. I’ve made every version of nettles I can imagine. Pesto, sauce, soup, tart. What else can I do?

Roadside shenanigans for today. A little distraction from the heavy political news, pandemics and stock market fluctuations. Celebrate the mysteries and marvels of nature!

Good morning!

Summer heat

If anyone predicted I would be watching the B52s perform in front of 15,000 French people on a hot summer night by the sea, back when I first listened to the band in 1982, I would have said “no way.” And yet. Thanks @lesdeferlantessuddefrance David Garcia, Christophe et companie for giving us a good time. @theb52sband Your stamina and energy inspires me. Play on!

Good morning. Lots of lasts this week. Last time with alternate side parking, on a rainy side street. We slept at my parents’ apartment last night after moving out on South Oxford Street. Stirred up memories of being a teenager, still living at home, wondering about what the future holds. Lucky to still have my parents. Lucky to be embarking on a grand adventure, moving to France on Monday.

It takes guts to be a pedestrian in India.

I’m in Wisconsin. On a farm!

Mesmerizing! Spotted at Musée d'Art Moderne, in Ceret (France, near the Spanish border in Catalonia). Small jewel of a museum in a lively, pretty town hugging the foothills of the Pyrenees. This video appeared in the excellent Najia Mehadji exhibit. @najiamehadji 👗 Les Frères Lumière La danse serpentine 1897-1899 Black & white film colorized 🧚🏿‍♀️ The dancer is American-born Loie Fuller (1862-1928) 👣

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Our Story

Toast at Home and Away began in 2010, teaching home cooking skills to people in their own homes. Our mission is to get more people to cook good food at home. For your health, your wallet, your soul. And for the well-being of the environment.

Today, Toast offers cooking classes, catering services, NYC food tours and now, custom, small-group trips to extraordinary places.

Led by founder Nan Doyle, Toast is extending its love of hospitality and taking it on the road. The first Toast Trip will be with ten lucky travelers on a 14-day journey to South India in February 2019. Get in touch for details.