Category: Seasonality

12 Days of Christmas: Cookies

One of my favorite holiday activities is making cookies.  Not just sugar cookies (which I’ll be devoting an entire post to later this week,) but cookies that evoke my favorite flavors of the season – citrus, berry and molasses. One of the earliest memories I have of being in the kitchen, (besides pouring a bowl

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12 Days of Christmas: Decorating the Tree

This past Sunday I had the entire house to myself.  The weather was a little chilly, (for Southern CA at least) and I felt like cooking.  Knowing that we had a busy week of holiday-oriented activities on the calendar, I decided to make all of the dinners for the week which was relatively easy (I

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The 12 Days of Christmas: Annual Christmas Parade

This is actually the first year I’ve experienced my town’s Christmas Parade and let me tell you – it’s everything you would expect from a small town parade.  The whole town lined Main Street (yes, it really is called Main Street) and I think there were at least 12 fire trucks, 10 marching bands, every

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The 12 Days of Christmas

The 12 days of Christmas is one of my FAVORITE Christmas carols of ALL TIME.  I love the repetition, imagery, and gift giving references.  Plus, I can belt it out as loud as I want and I actually sound good!  We even have an old Irish linen tapestry with a box for each “day” that

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Thanksgiving Day Photo Op

Alright, I know most of us have already moved on to Christmas shopping/decorating/light hanging, etc.  And, I totally meant to post this on Friday, but I was still nursing a serious pie-hangover.  But, I made the family wait to eat until each dish had been photographed and if I don’t use the pictures they will

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What Else is for Dinner on Thursday?

Yesterday I waxed poetic about the similarities between the Super Bowl and Thanksgiving.  And as much as I would really love to create another analogy for my Thanksgiving feast, I really just want to get on the road. We’re taking Madison to Knott’s Berry Farm for her first time today. But, I also don’t want

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Super Bowl for Cooks

It dawned on me as I spent hours combing through cookbooks, blogs, tweets and websites that Thanksgiving – more than any other holiday – could be considered the Super Bowl for cooks. Like a championship quarterback, cooks exert a lot of energy just preparing for the big day.  We spend hours imagining the perfect menu. 

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How NOT to Roast a Chicken

“Cousin Courtney” is the daughter of my “Auntie Roxann” – one of the Butter Sisters.  She recently went back to work and – like many of us – is juggling work, family and food.  When she found out that I had a stash of family-friendly recipes she asked me if I could start sending her

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We will return to our regularly scheduled programming…

…as soon as I recover from the flu.

Organic or Local?

Well.  My answer is kinda neither.  And sorta both.  Let me explain. I think when it comes to making smart, healthy and sustainable food choices people should consider not only organic or local, but seasonal as well.  This explanation could get a little long, but bear with me – I swear you’ll look at how

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