My latest learning adventure in cooking and gardening is composting. I'd always meant to do it. Saving food scraps to create homemade vegetable garden fertilizer always seemed like a wonderful idea to me. I'd save money and make a much better use for the coffee grounds, eggshells and citrus rinds ...
Kitchen Chronicles
Cooking for Cinco de Mayo
While shopping in my local grocery store the morning of May 4th, the neat rows of tomatillos, plum tomatoes, avocadoes and limes were just too much to walk past — a sure testament to in-store merchandising! And, since I’ll grab any opportunity to make dinner a fun event in my house, I loaded my cart ...
Co-Living
A woman I met at a brunch last weekend mentioned she, her husband and 5-year-old had just moved into co-housing. Right next to the gorgeous Arboretum, the co-housing is 40 units of different shapes and sizes for all kinds of people in Madison, Wi, each individually owned by a person or family. It ...
A Sink for All Purposes
A few weeks ago, my kids and I visited the Tenement Museum on the lower east side of Manhattan. This fascinating tour took us through several apartments in a virtually intact tenement building, providing a glimpse of the gritty difficulties of newly arrived immigrants. As we walked through these ...
The Shared Kitchen
When my friend Suzanne called to ask if she could cook over here while her kitchen was being torn up, I was thrilled. After all, I had blogged in the fall about how great it was to cook in my friends' kitchens while ours was being remodeled. It was the night before her son's birthday, and he'd ...
Can cooking with friends help stop global climate change?
Over my kids’ spring break, I headed into New York City to visit with my parents and spend a few fun-filled days enjoying theater, museums, great food and new neighborhoods. One of our adventures included a visit to the American Museum of Natural History and a stroll through its Climate Change ...
Making Granola with Friends
This isn’t the first time you’ve heard me extol the virtues of home-made granola. I’ve touched on the topic of making granola with friends so much so, that I am pretty sure that a good number of you have added it to your cooking together repertoires. In fact, everyone around me seems to be making ...
Stocking Your Pantry
One of the most important things to have when cooking with a friend (other than a good attitude and a clean dishwasher) is a well-stocked pantry. A pantry full of staples--from rice to lemons--will help you save time and money in the kitchen. You'll be able to be more flexible with your cooking, ...
Sam’s Club or Disney World?
For a home cook and bulk shopper (like me), a warehouse shopping outing to Sam’s Club is almost as good as a trip to an amusement park — and may even be better! Sometimes there are as many kids in the aisles at Sam’s Club, but there’s more for a home chef to choose from. Bring a friend along and you ...
Kitchen Envy
I cooked with my friend Deb the other day in her newly renovated, gorgeous kitchen. It was quite a treat! I felt like I was in a vacation home and as a result, fought the urge to start my “I need a new kitchen” campaign with my husband. That irrepressible, hate-when-it-happens feeling of envy began ...