Today is Blog Action Day and World Food Day. Big deal? Yeah, for those of us who lead comfortable enough lives that we have time to read and write food blogs, food is something we take for granted. But if you spend time with your local food bank, you will soon realize that lots of …
North Carolina is the number one sweet potato producer in the country. I love sweet potatoes and buy them at least every other week, so I’m always on the hunt for easy healthy recipes. I’m way behind in reading my food blogs but I’m so glad I didn’t mark them all as “read” or I …
I had no idea Leonardo di Vinci was a chef while he was working under Verrocchio. He also wrote Kitchen Notebooks. I don’t think Alton Brown would appreciate his unitasker culinary inventions, never mind their deadliness. “His invention for a giant whisk twice the size of a man involved an operator from within who was …
September 11, 2001 taught me never to take anything for granted. It was also the day I became a true patriot. That morning I was at work in a downtown Washington DC office a few blocks from the White House. A colleague had turned on her TV after hearing about a plane crash into one …
I celebrated Labor Day yesterday by not opening my laptop, so the usual Sunday Table has morphed into a Labor Day Table. I like the “if you can’t beat them, eat them” slant of these Washington City Paper and Baltimore Sun articles about the invasive snakehead fish. It sounds like a tasty fish. I’d love …
Goodnight Irene goodnight. I bet we’re all breathing a sigh of relief that Irene wasn’t as damaging as first feared. The North Carolina coast did take a beating. Folks on the coast will soon tire of the sound of chainsaws and the lack of power. Our lights flickered but never went out. Our house is …
I’m living two lives these days. My normal life takes place here in North Carolina where I work, hang out and fulfill my role as a domestic goddess, just like Nigella. My other life takes me across the pond to the mountains, villages and countryside of France where every morning (and sometimes again at night) …
The Tour de France is here! For the next three weeks I will be obsessed and distracted by the Tour. It’s my favorite sporting event of the year. Watching it live in the morning is never enough for me; I like watching the different version of commentary in the later show too. I did say …
A bill in my home state of Massachusetts will make the quahog the state shellfish. What?! Did I hear a snicker out of you? Surely it’s because you don’t understand the magnificence of the quahog. And in case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced co-hog, not qwa-hog as a delusional Midwestern executive chef once tried to tell …
I’ve got an egg, avocado, green onion, cheese and cilantro burrito to make so this will be a quickie. A little leftover avocado from my Mexican Shrimp Cocktail dinner is the prompt for breakfast this morning. Then we’re off to Fayetteville for Father’s Day and yardwork. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, …
Grabbing the Gusto 