papas for papa
The Spanish word for potatoes is "papa"? Coincidence? I think not because most guys – at least the ones I know – like meat and potatoes and my dad is certainly no exception. So when planning the recent Father's Day dinner, I threw all my complicated recipes and ideas...
father’s day steak out
Steak? For Father's Day? I know... not exactly a revolutionary concept. Well except maybe for me. See, I have a hard time with the simple. I feel like if I haven't worked really hard at it – haven't poured over recipes, researched all kinds of options and cooked for a...
back to the betty basics
My husband jokes that he doesn't think I ever make the same thing twice and while that might be a tad of an exaggeration, it's probably closer to the truth than not. Sure, there's favorites that get made time and time again, but with the shelves full of cookbooks and...
my new favorite summer salad
It's hard for me to sit here and preach about healthy food when my last post was a cocktail made with avocado, Kahlua, Bailey's and laced with chocolate (and worth every last calorie might I add). But I try to keep that type of recipe as an exception, not the norm,...
avocado? in my cocktail?
It all started when a client showed up at my office a couple weeks ago bearing a signed copy of Maneet Chauhan's new book Flavors of My World. While I didn't know anything about this chef (I don't have cable – it's really a blessing as if I had Food Network I may...
move over mimosa
I grew up on a farm where dinner was eaten at noon and supper in the evening. It made sense that you'd want the big meal in the middle of the day when the workload was the heaviest and something lighter at night when it was hot and there was still irrigation pipe to...
rice with lobster stock, mushrooms and asparagus
My husband and I are going through Top Chef withdrawals. We finished Season Ten with gusto and no sooner had the credits rolled that it dawned on us that we were out of Sunday night viewing material. See – this is what we do. Sunday nights are carved out for him and I...
basque baked eggs
I like breakfast well enough. It's certainly not my favorite meal of the day but on at least one morning of the weekend, I try to make something worth lingering over with my husband. But I felt like I was sort of in a rut – turning to variations of either pancakes or...
seasoned with spontaneity
It tasted like spring and friendship and laughter and collaboration. And wine... it definitely tasted like wine but I'm not sure that any of that actually made it into the recipe. And for that matter, there really is no recipe. Actually, I take that back – there is a...
pushing potato tradition
My family members are traditionalists – especially the men and especially when it comes to holiday dinners. There is a set menu that corresponds to each – Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter – with little to no room for creative flare. Oh sure... the cranberries might...
it doesn’t get more from scratch than that
It wasn't until the next day when I saw my friend Sarai post on Facebook about the dinner party we'd all attended the night before that it really sank in. It read, "Last night we were invited to a friend's house for pizza and almost everything was made from scratch...
who knew that vanilla and potatoes went so well together
A goal for this year was to pull a different cookbook down from the shelf each month and actually cook out of it versus just drooling over all the beautiful photography. So far I have tackled a VERY complicated, but delicious, soup recipe from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc...