Sometimes, you don’t know what you know until you tell someone else how to do it. Last Sunday my golf instructor Dennis noticed I was pulling up too short with my left arm and corrected me. I chastised myself for my poor skills and ignorance. He just shrugged in his laconic, cheery way and said, […]
You know those nights when you really should cook instead of go out? Or you start rifling around in the phonebook drawer for to-go menus, even though you know that stuff is costly and often very unhealthy? You know, those nights when you want to feed your family something healthy, and well, awesome, but you’re all […]
Hello! A bit of news for you. My newest cookbook, Better From Scratch is officially out in the wide world! It’s a book full of great foods you can make at home, but perhaps haven’t thought of making yourself. On the savory side, there are oodles of fun recipes for projects that don’t take a ton […]
There are times when despite your best efforts to be brave, strong, and smiling in the face of tough life stuff you just have to throw off the good girl gloves and do something selfish. A walking meditation tape I sometimes listen to describes it as cradling your child-self in your arms and nurturing it […]
Hi. My name is Ivy and I have a cookbook problem. The bookshelves in my office and kitchen are packed tight. There’s stacks of cookbooks on my night stand, various end tables, and a huge row of them in my kitchen, too. I’m not one of those “mark it for later” types, either. I actually use […]
I’m partial, I’ll admit it. I have favorite farmers at the farmer’s market. The guys or gals who recognize you from 40 paces, smile, and welcome you to their stalls with news of their goats, updates on their plantings, stories of brave battles with tomato hornworms. Today I was so sad to learn of the […]
Photo by Rebecca Gagnon, 2012, all rights reserved Community. The word brings up images of hippy coop grocery stores and swimming pools. It is a good thing, I gleaned that somewhere along the way, but I don’t really think I got what it meant until later in life. It wasn’t until I was a full […]
Happy National Bourbon Day, y’all! For me, it all started on a fateful night in New Orleans. I was young, impressionable, and had no idea how to order a real grown up drink in a bar. I found myself sitting at the lobby bar in a fine old New Orleans hotel chatting with a genteel […]
The NEXT BIG THING. Everyone wants to know what it is, before it is. Who is bringing sexy back? What’s the new black? Which restaurant is about to be so popular, it’ll be impossible to get a table? And of course, what’s the newest food trend? We all want to know. Just so, I got […]
Being from a small town in the Midwest named Sheboygan has its pluses and minuses. As a gothy punkette in my teens, I would have told you it was all minuses. I would have snarled when I said it, too. Sheboygan is an industrial town on Lake Michigan halfway between the cosmopolitan metropolises of Green […]
