Right before trash day, I generally take a quick look through the refrigerator and see if anything needs tossing. Not only does it get rid of expired condiments, last little bits of leftovers and bunches of herbs that have lost their luster, it also reminds me of things I bought for specific recipes and haven’tRead more
Back in December, Doug and I took a trip to Staunton, Virginia, a town of 25,000 people in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. It was probably our sixth or seventh visit there in the past three years. We really love it. At the prodding of a friend, I decided to go ahead and write aRead more
Winter is just terrible, isn’t it? And by terrible what I mean is there are no fresh tomatoes. As a result, my salads tend to get pretty boring: a sliced up carrot here, some slivers of red onion there. Yes, I know it’s possible to get tomatoes year-round, but they just don’t taste the sameRead more
I’m a total fanatic for celebrity diets. I never met an Oprah fad I didn’t like. Slap an endorsement on your program and I am, like, in. Three statements I have never before uttered in my entire life. So color me surprised that I actually like Gwyneth Paltrow’s latest cookbook. Look, despite the fact thatRead more
Now that there are several weeks worth of posts up at Persia Lou for the Handmade Holiday series, I thought I would share my contribution here. If you already saw this one, pop over to Persia Lou and check out the rest of the Handmade Holiday series. I’ve gotten some great ideas for holiday projectsRead more
Today I’m sharing a little holiday gift-giving cookie package over at Persia Lou, a great blog covering food, crafts and home decor, for Alexis’s Handmade Holiday series. Over the years, I’ve found that most people love getting homemade cookies as gifts, plus it gives me an easy go-to offering when we need something to bringRead more
I freely admit that I have a baking problem. I love trying new recipes. I love the planning process and shopping for ingredients. It’s an obsession. However, one can’t just go baking eight varieties of cookies on a weekly basis. I think even my husband’s co-workers would be cookied-out eventually. This is why I loveRead more
Graphic via Frou Frou & Frills Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I suppose that’s odd. Most people choose Christmas, right? It’s not like Christmas isn’t nice: I like presents as much as the next girl. But Thanksgiving is both social and food-centric. It’s a lot less about the stuff than it is about the whoRead more
These days it’s pretty rare for me to cook from a cookbook. There are tons of great food blogs out there and with more than 550 recipes pinned to my Treats board, baking from a book rarely enters my mind. I do use my Joy of Cooking and America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks on a regularRead more
Let’s try something new, shall we? Most of what I bake is sweet. Or rather, the things I bake that aren’t sweet don’t tend to be very interesting: basic wheat bread, cornbread, plain biscuits (or even biscuits with bacon and cheddar). I tend to assume that everyone knows how to make those things? Is thatRead more