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 ...
Kitchen Chronicles
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
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 ...
Blueberry Bread, A Reflection of Life
Sometimes things just don't go right in the kitchen. Last week, it was as if a bomb exploded in my oven. As smoke rose and the aroma of burnt blueberry bread swirled about the kitchen, I watched a disaster form in my new oven. What do you do when you have an epoch food failure? Or really any kind ...
Cooking with Friends Party Time!
A few times a year I will donate my time for a charity event. Last night it was for a group of twelve fellow fifth grade parents who won a Cooking with Friends evening at a silent auction. When I run a cooking party, my life stops for two straight days as I'm hyper focused on prepping and ...
Busily Baking with Barberries
When I get a new ingredient to bake with, I'm always eager to call my friend Suzy to help me create new recipes. She's the ideal friend to test and taste since she's always honest and will tell me what she really thinks. Yesterday, still soaring with excitement after my successful dinner ...
Bittersweet Barberries
Zereshk is the Persian name for barberries and that's what they'll always be known as to me. As I write this post, I do so bittersweetly. Just as the tartness of these tiny berries are sweetened slightly with sugar, so too are my thoughts as these berries evoke fond memories from my ...