Everyone has summer on the brain. The weather is warm. Schools are letting out. Kids are headed to camps. This week's Friday-Food-Frenzy recipes celebrate summertime. They're quick-and-easy requiring very few ingredients and, they're light and refreshing to taste! The first recipe is more like a healthy snack. I always remember Mom placing green grapes in the freezer to later peel and eat as a nice frozen treat. This recipe, inspired by a good friend and cook, Claire Abenante, adds just a few unsuspected ingredients to the grapes that … [Read more...]
Creating a Homegrown Experience with Your Kids
June 15, 2011 By 6 Comments
"The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm." ~ Swedish Proverb At the beginning of every summer we have a ritual with my dad, the real green thumb of the family. We plant a garden. Surprisingly, this custom only started the summer after my mother died. We never had a garden at my house growing up. However, we did support the local farmers and traveled to random farm stands around town to seek out the freshest picked vegetables. Some of my fondest memories are the car drives with mom on late August afternoons. … [Read more...]
Six Of One, Half Dozen of the Other
June 8, 2011 By 2 Comments
I used to rattle off this idiom all the time - until I started my cooking escapades. Now it just pisses me off. In its literal sense, the idiom is used to compare two things that are the same. For the past 39 years of my life, I thought half of the items lurking behind my cabinet shelves and refrigerator door were all the same until I started paying attention to the ingredients in Mom’s recipes. It’s astounding how many varieties of salts and vinegar and oils I accumulated over the years. Almost all of the bottles and boxes are … [Read more...]
Coming To “Terms” With Cooking
June 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment
To be a non-cook perusing a neatly organized, highly styled cookbook with sleek food photos is one thing. To be a non-cook staring at over 400 faded handwritten recipes strewn all over the floor is another. This is where neighbours’ I found myself this past September – stuck within a pile of recipes. A very daunting task lay before me. Forget about thumbing through a book under the “appetizer” category, searching for Impossible the perfect dish to serve FRIDAY-FOOD-FRENZY to guests. Forget about oogling at a picture of the most … [Read more...]
