In case you haven’t heard: Fran Crippen, an open-water swimmer on the U.S. national team, died this weekend during a 10K race in the UAE. There are still a lot of details that aren’t clear, but apparently the water was very warm and Crippen told his coach he wasn’t feeling well after 8K (that’s almost […]
This is not about eating or swimming, but it is marginally about shopping: A few weeks ago, I signed up for ballet at Maryland Hall. Those who knew me in elementary school will not be surprised at all by this fact. I started taking ballet when I was about 2 years old and continued until […]
Whether you call them cornmeal pancakes, hoecakes or Jen & Melissa cakes (I know, hilarious), these are delicious. I first had these around 2003 at Paula Deen’s Lady & Sons restaurant in Savannah with my mom and grandmother. We all loved them and I had been wanting to make them ever since. But I never […]
A few years ago, my mom got sick on Christmas. At that point, I had done a lot of baking and could cook a few dinner items (rigatoni, chicken tacos and spaghetti with tomato sauce, basically), but preparing an entire Christmas dinner was a little daunting. Luckily, my mom had already bought a ham and […]
I love mashed potatoes, but I think Toby loves them even more. His default meal for birthdays, homecomings (from deployment, not the high school football game variety) and other occasions is meat, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese and biscuits. Very nutritious, I know. So it wasn’t really a shock when he asked for some mashed […]
I had some dried ancho chile peppers left over from making that Esquire oatmeal, and this recipe was on the package. I figured I might as well try it. I halved the recipe because I didn’t have enough chile peppers and I didn’t really think we needed 3 pounds of pork. It ended up being […]
This is something I probably should have figured out for myself ages ago, but I didn’t really learn it until I took this class at Charleston Cooks. It is very easy and will minimize the time you need to spend cutting the onion, which should reduce onion-y tears as well. First, peel the top layer […]
You may remember my French vanilla incident this summer. Since then, I have been wanting to make eggless ice cream. And this recipe from the New York Times sounded especially yummy. There was a slight issue because I bought something called “Roman hazelnuts,” which don’t say anything about being roasted. But when I poured them […]
As I’ve mentioned before, summer is my favorite season. So fall is kind of a bummer, since it’s the end of summer. This may have something to do with the fact that fall doesn’t really exist in Phoenix, but I think it is mainly because I love the beach and don’t like the cold. However, […]
Last week I read this article in the New York Times about how Americans don’t eat enough vegetables. I am so guilty of this. So I decided to make a concerted effort to cook and eat more green (and orange and red and yellow) stuff. Spinach seemed like a good place to start. OK, obviously […]