Cruffins…Or when a muffin just won’t do

It was my friend Kimberly’s birthday.  I knew she was having a hard week at work…my quitting as her boss didn’t help matters…so I wanted to make her something special.  While I’m sure she would’ve appreciated a birthday cake (I mean who wouldn’t) to go with one of my homemade pizzas (her favorite), I went…

Read More

Whipping Up For Fall

Give me a new kitchen toy and watch me geek out.  The culinary nerd in me comes out in full force when I’m being paid to be creative and let loose in my favorite playground–the kitchen.  Such was the case when I was tasked with testing out a new prototype whipped cream dispenser (called Max…

Read More

Sweet Fry Therapy

It’s been a crazy, turbulent couple of weeks, full of anxiety, sleepless nights and one category five meltdown…which has forced me to do a little soul-searching.  Not surprisingly, I find that I always seem to think better when I’ve got something sweet to soothe my soul…even better when it’s sweet AND fried.  The first thing…

Read More

Antidote for Weekday Supper Madness

Even for those of us in the food industry who spend the greater part of our lives cooking or baking professionally, when it comes to supper we’re often at a lost just like everyone else.  It’s very easy living in a foodie city to succumb to the urge to simply eat out or pick up…

Read More

Better Cocktails Through Science

The long Labor Day weekend was the perfect time for binge-watching.  With endless possibilities and viewing options to choose from, I found myself browsing through YouTube, where I discovered my latest obsession–the wildly imaginative, over-the-top culinary wizardry of Heston Blumenthal.  I’d heard of his Michelin-starred restaurant The Fat Duck in Bray, England and knew a…

Read More

On your mark, get set…BAKE!

I have a confession…I’m a cooking/food show snob.  With hundreds of them on the air and thousands on the internet, we are inundated from morning to night.  I’ll admit I’m generally not a fan of the competition variety, like Chopped and Cutthroat Kitchen.  I lost interest in Top Chef after two seasons, mainly because I…

Read More

Birthday Girl…or 40 is the new 30.

It took weeks of stealth planning…endless Facebook messaging…multiple revisions…crafty, deliberate misdirections…all in an effort to throw Rina the surprise 40th birthday party she richly deserved.  She did not make it easy.  We all knew she wanted something special to mark this milestone, but being the suspicious woman that she is, Rina kept her husband, Ken, and…

Read More

Happy Hour

For me Happy Hour can happen any day of the week, though more often than not it’s the weekend when I can really kick back and enjoy a cocktail (or two) since I usually don’t get out of work in time during the week to take advantage of Happy Hour.  And since the Rio Olympics has…

Read More

Blame It on Rio (Olympics)

I’m trying to get into the spirit of watching the Rio Olympics…really I am. I must admit, though, the opening ceremonies left me more than just a little bored–so much so that I ended up switching over to The Great British Bake-Off (hey it was the semi-finals!) about an hour into the broadcast.  Maybe it…

Read More

Cheers to the Boy Who Lived (On)

I may have been sitting in a movie theater waiting for Star Trek Beyond to start, but secretly I was counting down the hours until the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the long-awaited (and according to J.K. Rowling) final Potter story.  Like millions of other Potter devotees, I want to know what…

Read More