Last month, between the pile-up of summer and the beginning of fall, between the first day of kindergarten and Hallie’s 6th birthday, between getting her first pet, Pearla the hamster, and losing her top tooth, I flew to Madison, WI for a cheese tour with Roth Cheese. Read more
I got the dreaded letter in the mail but deferred for 6 months because Hal was in preschool. And, like clockwork, as promised, the dreaded parcel came again, 6 months later. Jury duty. Duty. My duty, despite needing to be available to get Hal on the bus in the morning and off in the afternoon. Despite being self-employed with previously scheduled deadlines. Despite, despite, despite. So, I made muffins outta jury duty—wholesome make ahead banana coco carrot muffins made entirely from pantry staples, including Happy Egg Organic Free-Range Eggs™ to stock the freezer for breakfast this week. Because jury duty starts today. Read more
I have a funny, sad story about how this Vegan Mint Chip Ice Cream came to be. It’s a story about Kev’s birthday this past year, when he asked for Frankie & Jo’s Ice Cream, a delicious gift that could be consumed, no long-term storage necessary. Kev fell in love with the plant-based creamery last fall while at a work conference in Seattle, when I tagged along and we ate pizza at Delancy’s (not vegan) and skipped a store-front over for a scoop of Frankie & Jo’s (vegan) afterward. It was love at first bite. Read more
When I hopped off the plane a couple weeks ago from Texas, I bought everything to recreate a cashew queso I fell in love with over lunch. I also bought everything to recreate Salsa Doña, a creamy jalapeño salsa from Tacodeli, that I fell in love with during another lunch. Between those lunches and recipe testing, I’m dubbing this the summer of salsa (and chips). Because I’ve eaten a lot of them. Read more
Never have I ever been a night or morning person, run a marathon, or liked queso. Drippy cheese is not my thing despite growing up in Texas (home of the best Tex Mex and queso), despite growing up with a mom who made queso with Rotel tomatoes, despite marrying into a family that tops their tacos with white queso. After being away for two years, I flew to Texas twice in the span of two weeks, consuming a diet of chips and salsa like a bear before winter. Never have I ever liked queso until Austin, TX at Picnik over a bowl of creamy vegan queso and almond flour tortilla chips with my sister. That’s when it all changed. Read more
Twice a year, on cue, I clumsily transition from winter to summer cooking and back again, as if I’ve never cooked through it all before. Fall and spring are such short blips, I count them out in the bulk of my mental meal planning, though I consume as many red ripe strawberries as a spring can produce. It’s June, and the amnesia of summer cooking is slowly wearing off. It’s that season where the majority of the meal can be eaten raw and served out of a single bowl to be passed around the table family style, like communion, like a bag of unnaturally yellow movie theater popcorn, like a tall bottle of opened red wine. It’s a holy time unless I forget to set the chicken aside from the Family Style Chicken Gyro Salad. Hallie, my tiny vegetarian, protests loudly. Maybe that, too, is holy. We say amen, cheers, and eat together outside on a 65°F evening. Read more
It’s Friday. And by Friday afternoon, we have, what Daniel Tiger calls, mixed up feelings. Tired from the week yet excited for the weekend, with a nearly empty fridge, but an always stocked pantry. What will we make of it? Isn’t that always the question? We pull out the bag of masa from the pantry. Add a generous pinch of salt and some warm water. And somehow, we make something special out of our scraps, enough to yield a thrill, a delicious dinner, and homemade corn tortillas on a Friday night. Enough to remind me of my teenage weekends growing up in Texas—steamy tortillas, crispy chips, smoky salsa, and a hot sizzling skillet around the restaurant table with my family. Read more
Kev’s doing a 34-day fitness program, which includes changing up your macros, your carb intake. I’ve been a little grumpy about it all. Mostly because I’ve had to change my cooking habits. Let me clarify. I didn’t have to change a thing. “Mel, you don’t have to change a thing. I can eat around what you serve,” he said. But I’m the dinner maker around these parts. He does the laundry. Dinner is my job. And dinner is communal. And we sit together at the table to eat, eating mostly the same thing. I can change my dinner-making rhythm for 34 days, for Kev, I told myself. It hasn’t been without a grumble or two. Read more
