Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen

So after 12 years I finally got a new stove. Which was pretty exciting considering my old stove was already about 10 years old by the time I got it. While I might be nostalgic for the old wheezy beast, more specifically the two hot spots that are perfect for yogurt making, I will not miss the uneven cooking, the tippy grates, and the burnt insulation smell that filled the house when the oven was going full blast. When I was shopping for a stove I only had two requirements: it had to be gas, and it could not have a "chicken nugget" button. Stoves with a chicken nugget button make me crazy, don't ask me why. And when I say I was shopping for a stove, what I really mean is that I was at Sears buying washers - clothes and dish (hooray rebates!)- and the stove happened to be on sale and since the delivery fee was for one appliance or ten, I figured why not. Let me just say that the difference between the old stove and the new stove is like the difference between a typewrit...

Dear Mom, Thank you for not giving me to the rubbish man when I was a screaming baby. Thank you for not seeming to mind when I came home from kindergarten with a banana mooshed in my pants pocket along with a handful of sand. Thank you for thinking I was the prettiest girl in the 6th grade when all evidence pointed to the contrary. Thank you for putting 6,250 dinners on the table at 7:30 every night for the whole family and for making us talk to each other. Thank you for making me go to the museum, to the library, to the symphony, to the theater, and to the opera. Thank you for making sure I was well fed, more or less appropriately dressed, housed, and educated. Thank you for laughing at me and more often with me. Thank you for "fly me to the mooooon" and "te la la!". Thank you for teaching me how to eat and which fork to use. Thank you for encouraging me to read and write. Thank you for being my Valentine every year and for putting a little heart shaped present i...

Last night was the Evil Twin's bachelorette party and it was a blast. Literally. We showed just enough cleavage to burst a water main , but we weren't slutty enough to cause an earthquake .... Appropriate head wear was provided, along with inappropriate chocolates, there was a show, lots of drinks, and a couple of Pedicabs. I think that is all that I am allowed to say about the night. As a result I am dragging today. Like SERIOUSLY dragging. I am not hungover, but I did drink tequila and as everyone knows, tequila is the vampire of alcohol. It doesn't make me sick, but it literally sucks the life out of me. When I woke up this morning, all I wanted was a cup of coffee and a glass of water to revive myself. Alas, no water, therefore no coffee so I had to make do with an ice cold Diet Coke which wasn't bad but which wasn't the same. I should also mention that I am still in the process of fixing up the old homestead, a project that is about as slow moving as mo...

Sometimes I get obsessed with one particular dish/food item. Past obsessions have included: --- Sponge cake (age 10 to 12 - until Mom secretly tore the recipe out from the Junior League of Athens, GA cookbook, which she still denies doing... But really there is only so much sponge cake people can eat in life and I was churning them out at probably 2 per week. ) --- Thin Mints (age 0 to present - and let me tell you everything they say about mint oil and the digestive tract is completely true. Do I really care? No, not so much - I live by myself. ) --- Pizza (age 11 to present - I will do anything for the #16 - hold the tomatos - from Emma's. Anything. ) --- Anything that involves a potato. Since I was born. Currently I am in the throes of a full-on claypot crisis. I want it for dinner every NIGHT. Ohhhh, why am I even lying, I want it for every MEAL. How delicious does this look? (photo from Stephen OB) Basically this is a pot lined with crispy rice and then filled with all manner...

And the winner is: MerceditaA Congratulations!!! Please send me an email with your address and I will send this out to you today. Thanks to everyone who commented to win and I am actually sorry that I can't send you all a copy. Stay tuned for the next Big Giveaway!

GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! GIVEAWAY!! There are a lot of things I love about my job and this is one: our office has a full kitchen and we are encouraged to cook whenever we want. The kitchen happens to be next to the stockroom that is filled with our cookbooks AND there is a grocery store just down the street. How awesome is that? Pretty awesome! So today at work we are cooking out of one of the cookbooks we publish, Double Take by Jeremy Holt and AJ Rathbun . What I love about this book is that the recipes are pretty straightforward - whatever you make will turn out as expected. Which seems a trivial point, but I own a LOT of cookbooks and believe me there are plenty of recipes out there that just don't ever work out. Which is completely frustrating at 8:30pm when you are hungry and just spend $20 on groceries and are otherwise out of thin...

Sometimes dinner just has to make itself because I am too fricking tired. This is why having frozen stuff on hand is, well, handy. Dinner, and lunch today, consists of a quiche made from Chip-in Farm eggs, a little milk, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers, basil, and garlic. In a frozen pie shell from Whole Foods. I love the Whole Foods ready made pie shells and having a package on hand is just never a bad idea. I had made a large batch of caramelized onions a while ago and then froze them in batches. The roasted red peppers came from a jar I'd canned in the fall, and the basil and garlic I just had on hand. The basic recipe to fill the pie shell was about 6 eggs, about a cup of milk, about a cup of onions, around a cup of red pepper, and then season to taste. I just whisked it all together, dumped it all into the frozen shell and baked it in a 350 or so oven for about 35 minutes. Just to the point where it didn't wobble in the middle anymore. It came out pretty delicious....