The weekends have been hectic lately. But a good kind of hectic. Busy seeing friends. Having social dinners. Running around doing scavenger hunts downtown. Working on my freelance writing and editing. Trips out of town and, of course, trying to relax for the new work week! Unfortunately, dinner takes a back seat. But I've made... Continue Reading →
Donuts Make Me Go Nuts
My fascination with donuts is a love-hate relationship. I love to eat them but I have never made them, fearing the long process it takes. My love for them has spawned an entire page in my journal what kind of donuts I would serve if I had my shop. Donut necklace anyone? But my fear... Continue Reading →
Don’t Squander the Bacon
I've been living high on the hog lately. On my second visit to El Take it Easy to play Bacon Bingo, I literally brought home the bacon. And I won on the the first game of the night, too! Few things beat screaming 'BACON' at the top of your lungs when you realize you have... Continue Reading →
Ménage à trois au lait
The basics for most cakes is flour, eggs, sugar, baking powder, vanilla extract and milk. From there a recipe for can diverge wildly. Sometimes chocolate is incorporated. Butter or oil is used to make it moist. And even carrots have made an appearance. But when a cake includes three types of milk it's daring to... Continue Reading →
Don’t that just butter your grits
It's a proven fact that as a child I hated corn. Corn on the cob, corn niblets and don't even get me started on corn ice cream. Maybe it was based on the fact that I had awful teeth which led me to braces and unfortunately corn wasn't the best food to eat when you... Continue Reading →
Quin-WOW Pt. II
As noted in my previous post, quinoa can be steamed and mixed with a variety of ingredients to create a quinoa salad. Or the quinoa can even to be incorporated into my favorite: faux fried rice. Steaming this grain is a bit of work: between the rinsing, draining and rinsing again and moving the strainer... Continue Reading →
Quin-WOW
Most days, I bring my lunch to work. Last year I was really into avocados smashed onto whole wheat toast with a sprinkling of salt. The year before that was soup. For 2011, I'm into quinoa. Quinoa is an edible seed and has been identified as a superfood. It's a complete plant-based protein but without... Continue Reading →
The Proof is in the (Bread) Pudding
Last year, we had this grand plan to spend Thanksgiving at Disneyland. We had it all set up. One of Paul's Cool Jerk long-time readers, Caroline "Carob Sue," generously offered up two passes to Disneyland for us to use. There were a few conditions that came with the tickets: we take a photo at Disneyland... Continue Reading →
A story of a man and his bundt pan
Sit down and read a yarn about how Paul used to leave me slices of bundt cake at my desk when we used to work together. Yes, bundt cake. As it goes, I would be sitting at my desk in the business news department during the holidays, minding my own business and suddenly a hand... Continue Reading →
Rice, rice baby
I have a bipolar appetite. Growing up in a Filipino household, I resisted eating a lot of traditional food in an effort to become more Americanized — something my mom consciously decided to do once she started to speak to me in English from 3-years old and on. Now married to someone that didn't have... Continue Reading →
My Burning Kitchen... on the road 