I love reading cookbooks because I get to enjoy all that great food without any calories! THE LAKE MICHIGAN COTTAGE COOKBOOK takes you on a road trip all around Lake Michigan, the only great lake that is entirely within the boundaries of the US. They say the trip, which encompasses parts of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana…
The Art of French Pastry by Jacquy Pfeiffer My rating: 5 of 5 stars I love to read cookbooks. The good ones have yummy photographs, I get to “sample” meals that take days to fix, and best of all, there are no calories involved. So when I picked up The Art of French Pastry I…
This past growing season I’ve had the rewarding opportunity to be part of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) run by Deb Lentz and her husband Richard Andres called Tantre Farm. This Michigan farm has been totally organic since 1993 and produces the most amazing food! As part of our last share of the extended season,…
When I was a child, I remember sitting on a kitchen stool, watching my mother fix a cake for my birthday. As my special day falls in winter, it was often snowing outside, but warm and cozy in the kitchen. By tradition, birthdays were celebrated with an angel food cake, usually a box mix. Box…
I’m a mind girl. Most of my life my brain has directed how I do things, where I go, what I eat, when I sleep. That worked fine when I was twenty, or even thirty. Now, it causes me problems, sometimes. Having a long weekend with not a lot going on, I tried an…
Some women have a worry of turning into their mother, especially during stressful times. I have found through a quirk of fate that I think I’m turning into my mother-in-law instead! She was a simple, though intelligent woman who died many years ago, a traditional homemaker who raised a large family in the 40s and 50s and…
Yesterday was cold and windy. An anomoly day in our late spring. Unsettling and unpredictable. So what did I do? I cooked! And the birds and the wind kept me company. Disney and his cartoon rats not withstanding, RATATOUILLE has a long history in the annals of cuisine. The exact recipe for this vegetable melange came from the…
Ah, the mighty artichoke! According to legend, it was created by Zeus when he turned a rejected lover into one. (Zeus had a habit of doing this). Upset with the propensity for schools using Native American caricatures as school mascots, the Scottsdale (Arizona) Junior college adopted the artichoke for their mascot. At least their football…