When people find out I’m a free lance writer, they tend to assume I write about food. So when they find out I mostly write about gardening, they then begin to assume that I’m some fabulous gardening guru and start asking me questions about their gardens or tell me they’d love to come see mine sometime, which leaves me in a bit of a stammer because my gardens are really not all that. For starters, I’m lazy. Secondly, my lot gets lots of shade, so there are any number of plants I would love to have that just simply, don’t do well in our yard, like roses. 
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Let there be cake.
A wise woman once told me that she spends Mother’s Day doing what she wants. In her case, it was making brunch for her family, but still very good advice to adopt. Continue reading
Handwritten Treasure.
On our recent visit, Pat’s mom Kathy, offered I go through a chest where she kept her late mother’s cookbooks, to see if any appealed to me. Of course I leapt at the opportunity, but seeing how I’m trying very hard to not accumulate new cookbooks, there was nothing that deemed ‘necessary’. But then I saw this:
A gallon ziploc bag full of handwritten recipes as well as recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines over the years. I was more than a little excited and when I sat down to look through it, Kathy told me I could just have it. (!!!!) Continue reading
Spring Road Trip.
Edie’s spring break was last week, so we packed up the car and headed south to visit family and friends in Alabama.
Crazy mixed up.
A bakery here sells Panettone every December, which I tend to buy several loaves of in order to stockpile in the freezer. A traditional sweet Italian holiday bread studded with dried fruits, I happen to think panettone makes an amazing French Toast, particularly on cold, snowy mornings. I may have once or twice lobbied the owner of said bakery to consider making panettone more than just once a year – pitching a “Christmas in July” idea – so that I could have access to this treat more than once a year. Gerry was not buying what I was selling, but, he did manage to plant a seed that I could learn to bake panettone myself. I spent some time looking for a recipe, but most of them seemed pretty intimidating. And then this King Arthur Flour Co. recipe came to my attention.
Fork Soup.
This is one of those family favorite recipes that not only has been renamed from its original (and rather staid), “Creamy Spinach Chicken Tortellini Soup” but has also been completely reworked. Starting out as a quick weeknight meal that uses a number of convenience items like canned soup, at some point I had the realization it wasn’t that much harder to cook from scratch – just a little bit of chopping involved really. And because we lean more vegetarian, I started going with cream of mushroom instead of cream of chicken soup. The end result? Still really good while remaining an easy weeknight dinner. Continue reading
Soup really does make you feel better.
Last night, I had the pleasure of being an organizer for a Soup Dinner that benefited International Neighbors of Charlottesville. International Neighbors offers a network of support services to help immigrants acclimate to life here in the US. I got involved via my friend Dahlia, who said she would speak if I would bring cake. Or something like that…
Behind the scenes.
In my seemingly constant state of ‘busy’, I often refer to projects I’m involved with that I don’t always share in this space for a variety of reasons. Occasionally though, some of those mysterious projects do manage to see the light of day here. I’m excited to share a project that while I was only minorly involved in, resulted in my name in print. And when I say print, I mean, published in a book print, as in a cookbook – my very favorite type of book.
Unplugged.
This past weekend found us at a friend’s mountain cabin – the one we had been scheduled to visit back in January, but had to back out due to the creeping crud cold we all had at the time. We realized late last week that none of us had anything we had to do that weekend, so we quickly made plans to head out of dodge so to speak. Continue reading
Trying to walk the walk.
I am, I fully admit, a news junkie and have been most of my life. Growing up, my daily quality time with my dad was watching Walter Cronkite deliver the evening news and then we’d discuss the events of the day. I don’t watch the evening news these days, but I still love being informed as to what’s happening in the world. But I find that the news these days is just….well, just hard to take in some days. Okay, most days. What with ‘alternative facts’ and made up massacres on top of the rhetoric…..it’s getting harder and harder for me to take in my usual diet of news (which, if you’re wondering, includes NPR in the morning, perusing all the local news outlets (newspapers and tv stations) as well as a few national ones (New York Times and the Washington Post among others) and the occasional NPR in the evening and if I am still awake, the late night local news). I’m kind of a stickler for facts and reality, as well as civility, which seems to be optional in some news outlets these days. It’s more than frustrating to someone like me. Continue reading
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 