I fully intended to do a post called “Ode to candy” on Halloween, but my grandmother died unexpectedly, so I obviously wasn’t thinking about candy. Nanny (the 2-year-old me refused to call her Nana) is really my cooking and baking role model — everything she made was fantastic, and she loved to make things for […]
I usually wait a few days before posting things I’ve made (sometimes even longer), but I had to go ahead and show you these cupcakes I brought to work for Halloween. They are not difficult at all (though they are definitely easier with a microplane grater) and you still have time to make them for […]
The other day, my friend/co-worker Heidi sent me a grilled cheese slide show. She obviously knows me very well. This came shortly after Isabel told me she had received her first copy of Sunset magazine in the mail and that Tyler Florence is all over it. Those two things together led me to realize Sunset […]
We went to New York this weekend for the Navy-Notre Dame game at the new Meadowlands stadium. Well, actually we went to New Jersey for the game. But we took the train in to NYC on Saturday evening and again Sunday morning so we could eat lots of fabulous food and shop (just a little). […]
Sorry that swimming post was depressing. Let’s try something a little more cheerful. As you may recall, I recently made PB&J bars for a Navy football tailgate (or tailgater, as they call it). The midshipmen thoroughly enjoyed them, and apparently asked if I was making them for the next home game. Unfortunately, I learned this […]
In case you haven’t heard: Fran Crippen, an open-water swimmer on the U.S. national team, died this weekend during a 10K race in the UAE. There are still a lot of details that aren’t clear, but apparently the water was very warm and Crippen told his coach he wasn’t feeling well after 8K (that’s almost […]
This is not about eating or swimming, but it is marginally about shopping: A few weeks ago, I signed up for ballet at Maryland Hall. Those who knew me in elementary school will not be surprised at all by this fact. I started taking ballet when I was about 2 years old and continued until […]
Whether you call them cornmeal pancakes, hoecakes or Jen & Melissa cakes (I know, hilarious), these are delicious. I first had these around 2003 at Paula Deen’s Lady & Sons restaurant in Savannah with my mom and grandmother. We all loved them and I had been wanting to make them ever since. But I never […]
A few years ago, my mom got sick on Christmas. At that point, I had done a lot of baking and could cook a few dinner items (rigatoni, chicken tacos and spaghetti with tomato sauce, basically), but preparing an entire Christmas dinner was a little daunting. Luckily, my mom had already bought a ham and […]
I love mashed potatoes, but I think Toby loves them even more. His default meal for birthdays, homecomings (from deployment, not the high school football game variety) and other occasions is meat, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese and biscuits. Very nutritious, I know. So it wasn’t really a shock when he asked for some mashed […]