Food
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A Tiny, Delicious Package of Thanks
We’ve been in our new house in Maine for about three weeks now. I feel like every house has it’s own personality. This one definitely does with it’s old school charm, high ceilings and tall windows, even the creaky hardwood floors tell their own story. We’re still unpacking, stuff…so much stuff!! Still figuring out where we want everything, hanging curtains, painting rooms, figuring out what remodels we want to do, enjoying all the light and brightness. And we’ve been cooking our own delicious food in our own kitchen again. Lovely.
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Mini Cassata Cakes
My mom absolutely loved to entertain. She often reminded me of The Barefoot Contessa, cooking and decorating and making people feel special with her food and kindness, and making it look so easy. When we lived in Denver my parents entertained a lot. They set their tall, old ice box up as a bar, fitted the dining room table with the extra leaves and filled it with scrumptious appetizers and finger foods, my dad’s paté, smoked salmon, warm bread dip & anti-pasta trays. So many choices. I loved it when the house began to warm up with friends and neighbors. More often than not, snow drifted down outside on a chilly fall or winter…
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Weekend Breakfast Love
I love weekend breakfasts, absolutely dreamy-stars-in-my-eyes in love with them. They are some of my favorite meals ever. Before we had kids, Greg and I enjoyed weekend breakfasts together, side by side on the dining room bench, with our amazingly rich cups of coffee, while trying to conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, the Merl Reagle Crossword. I made Greg hold the pencil because he always answered way more than I ever could. Unless, of course, it had to do with literature or French. It’s a little amazing to me the things that stick with us and the things that remain out of the grasp of memory. I can…
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Gather Around the Table
I have a a new essay up on Her View From Home, in the kitchen section about feeding a family in an enjoyable way. In the scheme of things my essay is not that important compared to what is going on in the world right now. Bombings, nasty politics, child abuse, domestic violence, rape, drought, flooding, human trafficking, racism, hatred, fear, police killings, killings of police officers, any killings, the list could very well be endless. No, my recent, minuscule contribution, How to Simplify Weeknight Dinners & Please Everyone is just about one of the mundane aspects of parenting, getting dinner on the table. A lot of parenting is just that, mundane,…
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The Best Spicy Grilled Chicken
I realize we celebrated an important holiday this past weekend, that amazing thing called Independence Day, but if you live in the Pacific Northwest, second maybe to Independence Day, is summer, our summer, which we joke doesn’t begin until after July 5th. So many, many years it’s no joke. Cold, rainy springs bleed into cloudy, rainy June-uary; both feel neverending. And that’s often after an entire winter of ceaseless rain. Even today as I write this, it’s 60 degrees and raining outside. When July arrives, it’s like we can breathe. We grab onto summer and wring every single drop out of it as it stretches before us, warm and dry…
