Happy Holidays

The Jackson Pollock method of biscotti finishing.

This is the week when TBF actually stands for "The Biscotti Factory". My kitchen is turned into a veritable assembly line of mixing, baking, cutting, drizzling, wrapping and packaging the best damn home-made biscotti cookies you ever had.

TBF International, however, is also located in the very historic City of Medford, Massachusetts. Paul Revere, on his famous ride, galloped nearly a few yards from my front door. During Colonial times Medford was an integral part of what was the infamous Triangle Trade. You may remember this from your grade school history lessons. Medford was a hotbed of shipbuilding and rum distillation and historians say that we produced the best damn rum anyone ever had. It was also teeming with taverns and, as a result, drunken sailors flush with money and all of the colorful accoutrement that such a situation will bring.


The front entrance at TBF. Yes, we live in an old schoolhouse, built in the 1880s and converted to condos.

On a higher note, Medford was the home of cultured colonialists who had made unheard of fortunes on such trade and lived in splendid mansions the likes of which still dot our fair City. Comfortable and secure, they now had the time to pursue art, literature, learning, travel, food and the celebration of holidays in the most elegant manner possible. Those celebrations continued into new centuries and, still to this day, we carry on the traditions. In fact, not 100 yards from where I now type on a wireless keypad, surrounded by images and music beamed by satellite onto a wafer thin plasma screen, one of these traditions began and it is one that I am absolutely certain has touched your life.

Happy Holidays everyone! Thanks for joining me here and sharing the joy of food. See you next week.