I'm not a big dessert person. I won't pretend that I never order it when out for dinner. Key words like “caramel” or “ice cream” or “coconut” will often at least pique my attention. But more often than not I'll just nibble a bit of cheese with my husband after [...]
It's kind of funny to me that this month I've been talking up game-day snacks as much as I have. A few years ago my cookbook Gourmet Game Night was released and I spent a lot of time explaining that the "game" I had in mind was Scrabble or dominoes, [...]
It was a simple enough question, but it caught me off guard. "Can you recommend a cookbook for the basics, for someone starting out in the kitchen?" Paraphrased, that's what was posed to me by someone a few weeks ago at one of my book signings. Um. Well. Gee. I [...]
Having just completed a few months of heavy-duty (and fun) promotion of my latest book, it's probably no surprise I've been deeply engrossed in salty snacks lately. When demonstrating or sampling a recipe from the book , the key is to represent the books recipes exactly as written to give [...]
You know, me and my kitchen -- we're pretty close. I've been with this one for over a dozen years and we've been through a lot together. Lots of laughs and fun times, some long cooking marathons, writing a bunch of cookbooks (10 maybe?), a few challenges working to get recipes [...]
Based on Twitter feeds and Facebook chats, it sounds like many of us around the country were feeling a sort of solidarity with all those on the eastern seaboard being ravaged by frenetic megastorm Sandy. Honestly, the blustery weather we're having in Seattle would have been enough on its own. [...]
It's funny how sometimes there's an odd confluence of input on one topic coming at you from seemingly disparate directions. For me this week, it's been canning: a subject chatted about at a dinner party Saturday, something Facebook friends gave me lots of guidance about after posting a quick question, and something [...]
It strikes me as interesting that I have my liberal arts education in Tacoma, Washington to thank for my introduction to North African cuisine. Indirectly, I suppose, but it was a University of Puget Sound winterim study program of a month in Paris that had me exploring the bustling, colorful [...]
So, my next book Salty Snacks is going to be released last week of September.... After all those months creating and testing recipes, doing research, talking with countless folks about the world of salty snacks and some of their favorite preparations -- editing, tweaking, pacing in consternation, editing some more. This [...]
One of the unexpected outcomes of pursuing a path in the world of food writing is that of being asked to judge cooking competitions. It's not something I'd had in my scopes when thinking about this career path, but must say it's a really enjoyable part of the picture. From salmon [...]