Labor Day weekend is flashing it's yellow lights of warning. Not only does it mark the official end of summer, but also provides the heads up that summer's finest -- sweet corn, Jersey perfect tomatoes and crisp kale -- are on their way out. For some people, Labor Day weekend might be that final ...
College Care Package Connection
As my eldest son spends his last days at home before departing for college, a chapter in my family life is rapidly drawing to a close. In these bittersweet times, just as the years have carried me through his life, my emotions ebb and flow as I recollect the days gone by. Within my thoughts, the ...
Summer Cooking & Savoring Farm Fresh
Upon my return from the Algarve, I've felt myself in a race against time. As the farms abound with my favorite ingredients -- corn, zucchini, beets and tomatoes -- I'm hustling to create as much as I can. Needless to say, my freezer is stuffed with farm fresh everything, from gazpacho and blueberry ...
Creamy Corn Empanadas
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Fresh Figs and the Algarve Air
Cooking is a whole lot easier when you've got the freshest ingredients available at your fingertips. That's why cooking in the summer is ideal, where farmers' markets abound with foods begging to be made into something delectable. My vacation cooking in the southwestern Algarve was interrupted this ...
Cinnamon Chip Zucchini Bread
Upon my return from vacation, I was greeted by an overgrown garden with one extraordinarily large, on steroids-like, zucchini. I wasn't functioning too well the first day feeling the jet lag pretty strongly. Having already had a few mishaps in the kitchen (like nicking my finger on the mandoline) I ...
Cinnamon Chip Zucchini Bread
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Vacation Cooking
When I think about my vacation kitchen, far away across the Atlantic Ocean, I think not just of the foods I've made for more than two decades with and for my family, but what it is that I will make that's new this year. My vacation kitchen is in the Algarve region of Portugal, surrounded by fig, ...
Fig, Goat Cheese & Honey Crostini
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Self Catering my Son’s Graduation Party
I've hired a caterer for my son's graduation party and it's me. Whether it's with a friend or solo, I've been cooking and freezing for the last few weeks getting ready for his high school graduation party. I've got his many friends in mind as I mold crab cakes, stuff empanadas and brine pork ...