All work and no play has been making Cynthia somewhat dingbatty. Honestly. It's that kind of brain-frizz that makes me turn in circles in the kitchen 3 or 4 times before I remember that all I needed to do was grab a knife out of the drawer to spread peanut [...]
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 [...]
It must be a bumper-crop year for chanterelle mushrooms here in the Northwest. My local grocery store, the wonderful West Seattle Thriftway, has had a consistent supply of lovely chanterelles for $8.99 per pound, one of the lowest prices I recall seeing for the beauties in recent years. And I've [...]
I can tell by my watch that it's salmon season! Well, okay. Not exactly by my watch. But by the fact that the harbinger of the seasonal openings--Copper River--has launched and that means that commercial openings begin peppering the region, bringing in freshly-caught wild salmon from throughout the Northwest. What [...]
A couple of weeks ago I was in Portland for the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference, an event that's a highlight of my year and has been for nearly two decades. I joined nearly 60 of my author-colleages at a public book signing event on the Friday afternoon of [...]
Anyone else out there love both food and playing games as much as I do? I sure hope so. Because today's the official release date of my new cookbook, Gourmet Game Night. It's the ideal book for that niche of humanity that lives in that overlap of the foodie crowd and the [...]
This morning's breakfast was a particularly good eye-opener, a nice change of pace from my standard fare (english muffin with peanut butter, yogurt with Grape Nuts, bowl of cereal). Today, I slipped a piece of cornbread from the pan in which I'd baked it yesterday. I cut the piece in [...]
At Seattle Bookfest in late October, I found myself chatting with a gentleman at the Book Club of Washington booth about their organization. "Are you a collector?" he asked me. "No, not really," I muttered. "Do you have more than 3 books at home?" Sure. Of course. Who doesn't? Is it that easy to [...]
'Tis the season. For a lot of things, actually. I hear talk of comfort food and big cozy sweaters, fires in the fire place and hunkering down to watch old movies and read a good book. And with all this rain, cooling temperatures, it's also the season of wild mushrooms. [...]
I hope you read that title with an appropriately thick French accent, as I'd intended. Lay am-behr-gehr. It makes a difference. Because this isn't about the all-American hamburger we all know and love, instead a Gallic take on our Yankee icon. It really had never crossed my radar in all the [...]