When the weekend rolls around and I take my one or two days off from cooking, Italian food is usually the cuisine of choice for dining out.  This week, one of these days off came a little early because I didn’t have time to go the grocery store after work.  We visited our neighborhood Italian place and of course, I had their Linguine con Vongole. I’ve been eating this dish for over 10 years and ...

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So I’ve had a draft of this post waiting to be finished for sometime now.  I wanted to present a detailed account of cast iron cookware:  How did it get its start in the American kitchen?  What caused its wain in popularity and why (or is it) making a comeback?  I learned that China and Europe had used cast iron cookware for centuries before we first took notice of it in Colonial America.  But you ...

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All the rain here in the SF Bay Area has dampened my attitude about spring…literally.  April showers?  More like April storms.  Mother Nature sure has a funny sense of humor.
Since this damp, gray weather isn’t fostering much of a sunny attitude, I’m yearning to be on a beach somewhere–anywhere–to escape this gloomy atmosphere.  Do you ever feel like this?  Mexico would be just the ticket, don’t you think?   I’d love to be sipping a ...

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Today, I present to you the four C’s…and I don’t mean to disappoint you but this has nothing to do with diamonds.  I have a cake, it’s chocolate with another key ingredient, coffee, and I used one of the best contraptions I’ve seen in a long time.
First, the cake.  I’ve made this twice over the last week.  I had two separate gatherings planned six days apart and I wanted to make everything from scratch.  My ...

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Kitztbühel, Austria is a place I long to return to.  It’s a charming little town full of history and home to some pretty good skiing.  It’s also where we my husband and I were introduced to one of our favorite artists, Alfons Walde.  Walde studied painting in the early 2oth century and was a pioneer artist in terms of using skiing as a subject in painting.  His use of light and color really capture the ...

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