I’m not Southern. My dad is from Texas and my mom’s from West Virginia, but I was born in Northern California and grew up in Arizona — which is technically in the southern half of the U.S. but is not REALLY the South. The first time I remember hearing someone use the word “Yankee” when […]
As a military wife, military reporter and friend of many Marines (and a few sailors), I have done a lot of overseas shipping. I send so many baked goods that the owner of the Annapolis Post Box knows me as “The Cookie Lady.” The first time I sent cookies overseas was almost 10 years ago, […]
When I was little, I spent just about every summer day in the pool. A lot of spring and fall days, too. That definitely wreaked havoc on my blond hair. My brother and I had to use UltraSwim shampoo like crazy to get the green out of our hair. Now that I’m older, I don’t […]
It took us three days to get back from Hawaii, because we decided to take military air. So I ended up spending my birthday in Miramar, California, which isn’t really a bad thing… except that we didn’t know we were staying there overnight before we got off the plane. I wanted to go to a […]
I have recently discovered that I really like butternut squash. But since I had never cooked with it before, I wasn’t sure how to chop it up. Luckily, the “Gourmet Quick Kitchen” special edition had instructions. First, try to find a butternut squash with a long neck that seems heavy for its size. Cut the […]
I have been baking a lot of cookies lately, getting ready for Eat Swim Shop’s 12 days of Christmas cookies (Get excited!!!). But I know some of you have probably already started baking, so I wanted to give you a few cookie baking tips. **If you if you need a good cookie recipe before Tuesday, […]
This is something I probably should have figured out for myself ages ago, but I didn’t really learn it until I took this class at Charleston Cooks. It is very easy and will minimize the time you need to spend cutting the onion, which should reduce onion-y tears as well. First, peel the top layer […]
So you bake a lovely, moist cake. And you whip up some fabulous frosting that is a different color. And then you realize — I have no idea how to combine these items without it becoming a big mess. Don’t worry. The secret is a crumb coat. If it’s a layer cake, the first thing […]
So, apparently I’m not a horrible person after all. I recently mentioned mise en place — the technique of prepping all your ingredients before you start cooking. It was only then that I realized that not only is that a thing with a name, I apparently was supposed to be doing it. Yikes. Yes, the […]
This might be a “duh” one, but I used to butter a pan by just picking up the stick of butter and rubbing it around in the pan. Even if I tried to hold it by the wrapper, I’d still get butter all over my hands. Then I saw Isabel do the following: Put some […]