The pantry used to be the nerve center of the kitchen.
When I was a little girl, mom had it stocked with lots of stuff from canned foods – some in canning jars – to dried beans and spices. Our moderately stocked pantry was a symbol of comfort and security for our family. It was never bare or barren. When you looked in my mom’s pantry, you immediately knew that she was a cook whose objective was to make sure her family was well feed with hearty, rib sticking, and filling meals. Continue reading
Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving.
The large, browned to perfection, glistening turkey is a monument that marks this hallowed occasion.
It’s the centerpiece at the table. We circle it like wagons and glaze upon its roasted image with wonder, delight and torrid, tasty desire. The cook who prepared it must be a saint. Surely no sinner could create something so phenomenally divine. Continue reading
My inspiration started and continues here
My little inspiration pumpkin keeps on inspiring me.
Long after the Halloween festivities, it still sits on my kitchen table emanating a holiday-like aura, showing no signs of atrophy or deterioration. It’s so stalwart and not to mention cute.
It’s often the way things work for me – something simple, something innocuous, something as ordinary as a Jack Be Little Pumpkin ignites a spark of creativity, and off I go. This spontaneity has served me well as a journalist and it has been a great asset as a food blogger. Continue reading
It’s pumpkin season – applause please.
There’s nothing like sauntering through a pumpkin patch in Los Angeles looking for the perfect pumpkin under sunny skies and 80 degree temperature.
It’s a tough job. But as a native Angeleno, I somehow manage to muscle through it.
Getting my Halloween pumpkin is actually an annual rite of passage into the holiday season. It gets me into that holiday state of mind. This year my pumpkin ranks up there with Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. It’s small but meaningful to me. I don’t have small children at home anymore so I don’t need the “great pumpkin.” But I always need a little somethin’ somethin’ to inspire me. Continue reading
collard greens and caviar 