Family Reunion
Thursday I leave for Colorado to see my mother’s side of the family for our reunion. I love my family; they are hilarious, kind, loud, and playful. But they are all also family cooks with their own recipes, stories, and lifetimes to share. My great aunts have owned a country cafe in a small farming town called the -Lo (“Bar-lo” just so you know) and while they put the cafe up for sale, they still have all wonderful homey recipes. I need these recipes. They are delicious and old-fashioned (but in a GOOD way… a comforting way).
At our last reunion it was brought to light that, yes, people do get older and the stories and recipes we have in our family may not always be around. Especially if we don’t record them. SO. My project this reunion is to interview everyone and get those recipes and anecdotes that have so defined my family members.
Perhaps come Christmas I’ll have a cookbook together (all recipes tested and photographed) to send to my family.
This should be fun 
Pineapple Pork – Paula Deen
Well, no photos for this one, but instead just a quick review. Yes, I watch Food Network. And I love Paula Deen. Don’t judge, butter is delicious and you know it. And the other day a particular recipe came on that sounded delicious… Pineapple Pork Pie This isn’t a recipe for what you may think…
Spicy Mango Shrimp
I got inspiration for this recipe from seriouseats.com, though I don’t remember from which posting. All I remembered is it had chili pepper and mango. If I wasn’t so lazy I could just type in the search field “shrimp” and “mango” and find it… but oh well. I AM lazy. I was excited about the…
Bailey’s Irish Cream mini cupcakes
I’m late for St. Patrick’s day, but I’m right on time for another birthday. My friend Miranda turned 22 yesterday and since I’m a little broke at the moment (I mean with tax season and all), I told her I would make her cupcakes. Cupcake batter: 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour 3 tsp baking…
Barely Surviving the Rain
This has been a wet winter in California. A fact of which I am not at all perturbed about, being that fires in recent memory almost took out my home and destroyed acres of forest around where I live. I like seeing the reservoirs full and not worrying about drought and dry hot summer fires.…
We were out for blood
Anyone who knows my stories of traveling around the UK with TMB knows I couldn’t stand her anymore. She went from being a friend that I found mildly annoying on occasion to someone my BFF and I were conjuring up intricate and inventive ways of ditching her. By the time we left Blackpool I was…
Blue Daffodils
On top of everything I really enjoy doing, I also love baking and decorating cakes. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone. My friend, Serena, just celebrated her 25th birthday and I wanted to make her something special. She is well aware of my love of baking so I offered her whatever kind of…
28 miles up hill both ways
After Conwy we left for Blackpool. Blackpool is, supposedly, a lot like… the Coney Island of England, or a mini-Vegas, but I can’t say whether that is true or not. First, I have never been to Coney Island (though I’ve been to Vegas a handful of time), and second, we went to Blackpool in the…
Fungus Soup
I’ll confess, I really enjoy Barefoot Contessa on Food Network. Ina makes some delicious dishes and I often bounce ideas off of hers to come up with new recipes and interesting dinners. A couple weeks ago I altered her recipe for Cream of Wild Mushroom soup ever so slightly and paired it with roasted vegetables…
Always thinking about food
I’m not lying. I am almost ALWAYS thinking about food. When I’m prioritizing work, I’m thinking about when I can squeeze lunch in. Calling friends up to arrange plans for the weekend… those plans will include food, generally something I’ve made. Camping I can almost care less about where as long as I get to…
