Four for Dinner

After a week and a half away, S & I returned home on Friday…exhausted. We were in New York, for my parents 50th wedding anniversary, and in Washington, D.C., for a grand tour. Before returning home, we sent the girls off to camp for the summer. We came home kid-free and slept-in on Saturday, which [...]

I have some leftovers and lots of great memories of a wonderful weekend with S’s family. Given that we live closest (by more than 800 miles) to Grandma, we were the locus of the activities for this past weekend’s celebration of her 80th birthday. Family started to arrive last Monday (scrambled eggs for dinner day) [...]

It serves me right for not using my usual Paella recipe. I figured that I’d wing it with no problem. Didn’t even look at the timing or the quantities, if only for reference purposes. That is why we didn’t sit down to dinner tonight with Grandma and WG until 7:30. More than an hour after [...]

I went to the farmer’s market with the girls on Saturday and it was packed. There were so many new purveyors of unusual foods, not just the usual fruits, vegetables and flowers. People were selling all sorts of baked goods, grass fed beef, fresh fish, crepes, brick oven pizza, chocolates, and more. It was really [...]

Time for another student council bake sale. I got the e-mail yesterday. Luckily, this time, there are two additional bakers added to the mix and we are each responsible for 36 muffins. One of the parents had a healthy cookie recipe, but because the recipe had chocolate chips in it, it was given the axe. [...]

I love the beginning of the weekend. It starts for me when school is out on Friday afternoon. This Friday, we had another family join us for dinner and pizza making. I thought that I’d try grilled pizza, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. I don’t know why. So, instead of trying a new recipe, [...]

L wants THE ice cream cake for her birthday dinner. I’m positive that I won’t make it as well as my mom does. I’m not even sure that I know the recipe. I’m improvising a little and adding more of my favorite parts (ice cream soaked macaroons). The recipe (or, really, the technique) for the [...]

Yesterday, one of my very close friends celebrated a big-ish birthday – youngster that she is. Coconut cake is one of her favorites. Mine, too. I love, love, love, the Barefoot Contessa coconut cupcakes, but anything that has 1 1/2 pounds of butter per recipe is something that I can’t see making these days. I [...]

Last weekend, the long President’s Day weekend, I didn’t do too much cooking. But, I did do a bunch of eating. We went to one of our favorite restaurants, located relatively nearby on the California coast in Pescadero (near some great tide pools and beaches, and Phipps Farm): Duarte’s Tavern. This charming spot has been [...]

Just finished the meal and it was good, but not as good as I’d hoped for a couple of reasons.  First, the girls were just not that into the cooking.  Raw chicken, not so appealing to 10 and 11 year olds.  Second, we started a little late, everyone was hungry (and cranky), and we didn’t [...]