Monthly Archives: December 2013

Mashed Potatoes That Will Save Your Sanity

I don’t mean to be overly dramatic but it’s true. This recipe can help you avoid going crazy in the kitchen while cooking big holiday dinners. When I prepared my first Thanksgiving dinner years ago, mashing potatoes at the last minute gave me a full blown panic attack. How are you supposed to mash potatoes…

Christmas Buffet Revisited

  I broke my cardinal rule this holiday of keeping it simple, keeping it easy. I’d previously posted on this blog about my fabulously easy, simple and delicious buffet for twenty people on Christmas night. And it was until I listened to a foodie family member (a very good cook) tell me how easy her…

Carolyn See’s Perfect Chickens

Carolyn See is one of my favorite writers. All her novels (The Handyman et al) and her best selling non-fiction book for writers, Making a Literary Life, plus her essays and book reviews, can make me laugh as well as move me to tears, often in the very same paragraph. When I emailed Carolyn and…

Aunt Susan’s All Day Stew

We all know red meat isn’t good for us so you won’t find many meat recipes on this blog. If you need to have red meat why fool around? Go grill yourself a steak or go out for a hamburger. (In one of her wonderful Home Cooking books, Laurie Colwin said never cook hamburgers at…

A Lazy Open House: Christmas Night Buffet

Every Christmas we give a small open house the evening of December 25th for about twenty friends who live close by. Dogs are invited too.The house is lit by candles and with the Christmas decorations up it’s a very pretty party. (If there’s one thing you should splurge on for parties or dinners, or for…

Islesboro Seafood Bake

When my niece Elizabeth got married last summer on Islesboro off the coast of Maine, I discovered this recipe in the local paper. It sounded like the perfect dinner party dish – rather elegant and rich, and you could make it ahead of time, even the day before, and then just heat it in the…

Phyllis Theroux’s Best Soup in the World

When I read Phyllis Theroux’s wonderful memoir The Journal Keeper I became such a fan I got in touch with her. We discovered we had some mutual friends and began writing back and forth. When I got the idea for this blog I asked her for an easy recipe and she sent me “The Best Soup…

Pasta with Tomatoes, Arugula and Burrata

  Two months ago I didn’t even know what burrata was (mozzarella cheese filled with cream), and now it’s part of my favorite pasta dish. I found this recipe online at Williams Sonoma and my first attempt was not a success – it scored 3’s with my friends.  But salt (I had forgotten it the…

Faux Souffle

I had this egg cheese soufflé at a brunch in Palos Verdes a long, very long, time ago, got the recipe (“It’s not a real soufflé you know,” said the hostess) and have been serving it ever since. It’s been so long that my friend Nicki swears she gave it to me, but the fact…