I sit here at my desk, typing away while looking at the now-sunny Seattle sky, seagulls passing, Olympics peaks just beyond view in the distance. A few days ago, I was working on this same laptop from my desk in the 45th floor hotel room I was staying in, midtown Manhattan, a view of countless [...]
Yep, she's right. My pal Tracy imagined aloud in a blog post that when I wrote Gourmet Game Night I was likely "thinking of Scrabble, poker or backgammon" rather than football. I don't care much for the game, actually. Never watch during regular season. The last Super Bowl I watched was [...]
I don't have much of a sweet tooth at all. In fact I often joke that if there's such a thing as a salty tooth, that's what I've got. But on one sweet subject I can get rather giddy: caramel. Though only really amazing, buttery, rich caramel need apply. I cringe [...]
Yeah, I know. Though technically it was less than two months ago, Thanksgiving already feels like a faint memory from months gone by. So I won't dwell on details of that day's feast that we enjoyed here at my house. The ginger-and-orange brined turkey that I grilled over mesquite-enhanced charcoal out [...]
Is it just me, or did this recent transition from one year to the next come with a larger-than-usual dose of year-end lists? Both of the looking-back-on-what-happened this past year and the ever popular crystal-ball-gaze toward what the coming year may hold. And food trends certainly stand out as one of the [...]
The unexpected White Thanksgiving we experienced here in Seattle certainly threw us all some curve balls. The end result at my house was that--for the first time in many years--my Thanksgiving dinner table didn't include any of my blood relations. Brother sick, niece working, sister stuck on Queen Anne hill, [...]
When I began dreaming up the idea of Gourmet Game Night, I really wasn't sure exactly how many folks there were out there like me. How many inhabit that cross-section where people who love good food co-mingle with people who love to play board games/cards/dominoes/etc? I had to hope that the potential audience [...]
Much as I like to think I'm an organized person, inevitably there are trips when I realize too late something that I failed to pack. Usually remedying the problem just takes a trip to the drug store for some toothpaste, or relying on the room's alarm clock rather than my favorite [...]
Most of Gourmet Game Night is all about the food and recipes, serving ideas and planning tips. The "gourmet" part. I am a professional food writer, after all, and that arena is the core of my expertise. But it wouldn't be Gourmet Game Night without the games, right? We've all got a [...]
I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me before, but ricotta's a great ingredient to have on hand. One small tub came to the rescue twice in this past week and it's got me thinking I should add ricotta to my grocery cart most every week. Friday night we were joining [...]