Today’s post relates to a serious subject: the level of pesticides present in the food we eat. I was shocked to learn what the numbers on the stick-on labels of fresh fruit and vegetables actually mean. I thought they were for scanning the price of the items, but that is only one purpose of the PLU, or price lookup number. Here’s what else it means: -If there are four numbers in the PLU, the produce was grown with the use […]
The first day of school was a big day in our house. For days before, we talked about what the girls would wear, what their teachers would be like, who might be in their class, and a million other vital details. I always wanted to make a really good breakfast on the first day of school. I thought we should begin as I hoped we’d go on. Of course the big school breakfast didn’t happen every day, but this recipe […]
This is such a luscious time of year! The stone fruits, the bountiful green vegetables piled up at roadside stands and farmer’s markets – they beckon to us to cook for ourselves and enjoy the sensual pleasure of creating something delicious. It’s a great time to invite a few friends over for a drink, and whip up some hors d’oeuvres out of all this irresistible produce. (By the way, “hors d’oeuvres” is one of the hardest words to spell, and […]
Julia Child once famously said, “A party without cake is just a meeting.” I agree, and since today is my birthday, my gift to you is the recipe for my favorite cake of all time. It is my mother’s recipe, from the recipe book she made for me as a wedding gift many years ago. This cake is similar to an Italian vanilla meringue cake, and has a lot of sugar in it. I hesitated initially to post the recipe […]
In keeping with the summer hors d’oeuvres theme, here is an American classic presented as an hors d’oeuvre. When I was 12, we took a family car trip to California. I ate fried shrimp everywhere they had it for three weeks straight. And then I didn’t eat it again for about thirty years, because fried shrimp in Amarillo or Dubuque in 1968 was not an informed menu choice. But the memory of the shrimp binge has faded and I’m back […]
