It’s amazing how memory works. There are so many experiences from my childhood that seemed so big, so awesome, so magical, and once I experienced them again as an adult, I realized that those were better left as cherished memories than something to revisit. I remember, for example, taking Joey to see Coronado Heights near …
Continue reading “Sometimes it pays to give memories a fair ‘cake’”
Editing for the newspaper leads me into strange rabbit holes sometimes. This week, it was a fair amount of research on hash browns. I have always spelled it as one word “hashbrowns,” but it turns out that I’m wrong. Also, apparently it’s not “hash brown,” although you can have “hash brown potatoes.” If it’s on …
Continue reading “Hashing out language isn’t always an easy task”
“Those apples were kind of pricey, weren’t they?” Joey asked me as we exited the grocery store recently. “They’re honeycrisps,” I told him. “So, they’re high-end apples?” “I mean, kind of.” It’s amazing that after 15 years of marriage, I can still discover new things about my husband. Case in point: he has no knowledge …
Continue reading “Can’t tell the varieties apart? You just have to ‘apple’y yourself.”
I recently watched a video that explained why there are so many different shapes of pasta out there. I always assumed it probably had a practical purpose and it wasn’t just because of ancient pasta makers’ boredom and creativity. And it does. If you’re wondering, it all comes down to the sauce. Have a thinner …
Continue reading “Cajun pasta shapes up to be an excellent, quick dinner”
Back in college, when I decided I was going to change my major and get my teaching degree, one of my first undertakings was to learn what I deemed to be a very important teacher skill: how to drink coffee. Growing up, the coffee maker only came out at our house if we were having …
Continue reading “Make your own coffee ice cream from the ground(s) up”
One of the downsides of spending as much time on food blogs and looking through recipe books as I do is I often discover that the photos are not a good representation of every recipe. That was definitely true with this week’s recipe. This was one Joey shared with me after finding it on social …
Continue reading “There’s barely a shred of evidence of veggies in this dish”
For two days last week, a huge, beautiful summer squash graced my kitchen counter. It took me a bit of time to mull over what I wanted to do with it. I hunted the Internet for ideas, finding lots of savory applications, as well as a few sweet ones I could use it in, but …
Continue reading “Oh my squash! A fresh, simple dish will wow your dinner guests”
There are a lot of ways people define the beginning of summer. For some, it’s the day school lets out. For, others, it falls on the summer solstice. For me, it was last week, when I saw the first crop of excess cucumbers nestled in a box in the local post office. I mean, is …
Continue reading “Here’s a fresh summer salad that is right on ‘cue-cumber’”
I have been spending some time reading through the Harvey County Fair’s entry guidelines book, looking at all the food categories. The one that intrigues me, which I need to pay more attention to when I go look at the exhibits this year, is for cookie jars. For the entry, the cookies have to be …
Continue reading “‘Wash’ out for these easy-to-make sugar-coated cookies”
I find that the toughest time of year to make desserts is summer. If it’s a particularly good recipe, I’m willing to heat up my kitchen by using my oven, but my problem is how the dessert will travel with the heat. And if the event I’m taking my dessert to happens to be outdoors, …
Continue reading “In July, heat-proof desserts are a ‘pine’ of the times”
