Crab Risotto Cake with Spicy Remoulade

A dear friend of mine (who, incidentally is a fantastic chef) recently confessed to me that she no longer cooks. She just “combines prepared ingredients from Whole Foods’ deli.” Now…granted…she has two small children (I admittedly only have one crazy Cane Corso Mastiff as a dependent), but the thought of no longer being able to cook…or having cooking be a luxury definitely got my attention.

That said, as an unabashed multi-tasker who brushes her teeth while ungracefully hopping into her clothes each morning and reads the NYTimes.com Continue reading

There’s an age old expression, “You can take the girl out of the East Coast, but you can’t take the East Coast out of the girl.”*

Having lived in Seattle for the last five years there is lots that I love about it here. I love the mountains, I love the job market, I love the people, I love the polar fleece (except at nice restaurants…why on earth do NW folks think that’s okay??). But there are times when I miss the East Coast and all its straightforwardness, its bluntness, its unapologetic attitude, and its history. Continue reading

Lavender Shortbread Cookies

I am a painfully dependable person. If I’m part of your life you can basically be guaranteed that:

• I will always be 5 minutes early, and at inopportune times will gently lecture about the importance of punctuality.

• I will always apologize for the state of my house, no matter how clean or dirty.

• I will always be up for late night snacks that include champagne (think nachos + champagne, mac and cheese + champagne, fish tacos + champagne)

• I will always send a Thank You card, although I must confess that I’ve translated the year-long window that applies to wedding presents to ALL thank you cards.

Deep Fried Duck

Like every woman in America I am trying to lose a few lbs.

[Note: As a I write this I do at least realize the massive ridiculousness of typing that statement under a picture of a deep fried duck…but alas].

Not a lot of weight…(thank GOD I was blessed with sympathetic genes and a 5’10” frame that allows me to, for the most part, consume what I want…if not, I would surely be 300 lbs), but a few lbs that would render me more fit, more svelte, more chic. Continue reading

(A guest blog post by Matthew Rhodes)

As many Irish folks can attest, there’s nothing quite like a good curry after a few pints of Guinness. This flavor combination got me to thinking about other ways to mingle curry and stout and… eureka! ThaIrish beef brisket! (For all of you who are now tsk-tsk’ing my lame wordplay due to the fact that “a curry” in Ireland generally refers to an Indian curry, well, nyah-nyah. This sounded better to me.)

Summer is over. Continue reading

Panzanella Salad

A dear friend, and fellow blogger, recently described her great accomplishments of the past month as:

• “I did not cry in the past four days even though sometimes I was really drunk.”
• “I went to the beach everyday in August and did not get burned.”
• “Yesterday, at the grocery store there were free samples of cake and I did not eat one.”

Because of how my life has been going, I’ve been measuring my triumphs in a similar scale. Continue reading

I have been partaking quite a bit lately in the three ‘Ws’: Walking, weeping, and wine. Not someone who I would normally categorize as a crier (my cousin actually confessed to me the other day that while she’s of course saddened by what I’m going through right now, it has made me less of an “ice queen”), these past few weeks I have wept. The kind of tears that you try to hold back that seem to break down the walls and come out your teeth. Continue reading

Lucky the Dog

I have, at rare instances in my life, been told that I’m prone to overreacting.

It began when I was three years old and was so terrified by the Wizard of Oz, that I instituted a strict moratorium on the word “witch” in our house for a number of months. The word could not even be said or I would fly into hysterics, shrieking and crying. My older brother quickly realized the power of this spoken word and would chase me around the house quietly saying “wwwwww……water! Continue reading