What a thrill.  This Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook definitely shook things up in my kitchen.  I love a recipe that makes you say “Hmm, I never would have thought of using _____ that way.” The thing that I found to be surprising is the use of capers [...]

If I had a million dollars, I would first hire a cleaning lady, then I would hire a personal chef to prepare healthy, flavorful meals for us every day.  I would still cook and bake at leisure, but the rest of the time I could choose recipes with my chef that he/she could prepare, like [...]

When I was a new bride, I already had a few dishes in my cooking repertoire, but I wanted to learn to make some of my husband’s favorite dishes, too.  So I asked his mother to teach me to make these recipes, and one of them was spaghetti. Here’s what she puts in:  onion, ground [...]

My Grandmother was green. Not the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba Thropp kind of green, but the eco-friendly, earth-preserving kind of green.  She kept her thermostat turned way down in the winter and way up in the summer (if on at all).  She never let the water run while washing the dishes.  She hung [...]

Our garage has turned into a black hole.  Like the washer and dryer that secretly steal single socks, the garage has been sucking things into the vast emptiness of oblivion, never to be seen again.  The tool box, the dog’s backpack, my Christmas china. I blame this on the fact that we have moved twice [...]