With Oreos celebrating its 100th anniversary today, I'm brought back to last year's cookie exchange with the Geek Girls of San Diego. Among the brightly colored cookies, which included the venetian cookies I baked, were these black as coal cookies. Despite appearances (some attendees mentioned the cookies looked like coal), they tasted almost exactly like... Continue Reading →
Resolution: Know Thy Chocolate Maker + Giveaway
Late in 2011, I made a conscious decision to try to attempt to eat locally. Avoid chains restaurants as much as humanly possible and instead eat at locally established restaurants. I've added local chocolate artisans to that list. Since when did I become that person? During the saw the economic downturn, I saw that friends... Continue Reading →
Cookie Swap Contender: Venetian Cookies
Cookie swaps is a genius concept: bring one large batch of cookies to a party with the intention of exchanging them for other cookies. The larger the group, the more cookie variety. While the intention is good, the idea of making a big batch of cookies -- and I'm talking over 5 dozen for a... Continue Reading →
The Best of Both Worlds: Sweet ‘N Slightly Salty Chocolate Chip Cookies
It wasn't too long ago that I didn't understand the idea of putting salt to compliment something sweet. It was weird and odd to me. If something was supposed to be sweet, why would I want to add salt? This next part you have to trust me on— salt makes anything sweet taste a bit... Continue Reading →
Tasting Ben & Jerry’s Schweddy Balls
Any long-time reader of this blog knows I have a major sweet tooth. I love cookies, cake, donuts and I try to indulge in moderation. But my favorite thing I always have room for is ice cream. I love eating sweet, creamy ice cream, regardless of weather. So when it's combined with pop culture, say... Continue Reading →
High on Homemade Pie
Here's a small confession: I have never made pie dough. From scratch, honest-to-goodness, work your upper body strength pie dough. All the lovely pies I've made over the years have used premade crusts straight from the grocery store's refrigerated section. Much like how sushi was a mystery to me prior to traveling to Japan, the... Continue Reading →
Paul’s Birthday: It’s All About The Cake
I would be remiss not to do a post about Paul's birthday. We celebrated Paul's birthday this past Wednesday -- one of the hottest days for October in recorded history. Last year, we celebrated in Cleveland and Paul didn't have a cake. Instead, we had frozen custard and Paul's was flavored with birthday cake --... Continue Reading →
Mi Amore: Italian Cookies
It's become almost a weekly routine for me to go to Little Italy's Farmers market every Saturday. I have it down to a science, really. Wake up at 7 a.m.. Take my morning walk. Consume coffee. Hop in the shower. Start laundry. Head off to San Diego's Little Italy. All this is usually before 10... Continue Reading →
Me Oh My, Thomcord Pie
I've been having pie on the brain lately. Peach pie. Strawberry pie. Apple pie. And especially, grape pie. There's something about the impending approach of fall that drives me into pie mode like no other season does. It's been two years since I made a Concord grape pie. It was a daunting task to remove seeds... Continue Reading →
The Sweeter Side of Avocado
Admittedly, I wasn't a fan of avocado growing up. It was always prepared sweet: in shakes, eaten as ice cream... really unthinkable things especially for a kid with an aversion to green things. It was always a big no-no for me. The color of these dishes were unappealing and it swayed me from exploring the... Continue Reading →
My Burning Kitchen... on the road 