I love Summer! Summer is the season for abundant fruit selection. From grocery stores to farm stands, gorgeous, flavorful enticing fruit surrounds us. Just looking at the bountiful selections makes me feel healthier. I have blogged about how to make an irresistible winter fruit platter. Here, some of the same principles apply: focus on fruit that is in […]

Sweet, tangy, sticky goodness: that is what BBQ sauce is to me. BBQ sauce is synonymous with summertime, backyard barbecues, and easy cooking.  Seriously, who does not love this American favorite slathered-on ribs, chicken, or brisket?  My older son has never really been a BBQ sauce fan, but then I made him taste my sauce. […]

I could live on tuna tartare. Seriously, straight up or on a cracker, I love the stuff.  If you know me at all, you know I order tuna tartare–or any kind of variation of it–almost everywhere I go no matter what the season. In all honestly, I prefer fresh raw tuna over the cooked stuff. […]

Cinnamon rolls are a true weakness of mine. I don’t have them often. But boy, if I could, I would. My earliest memory of cinnamon rolls relates to my parent’s divorce when my sister and I were very young. My mom moved to NYC, and my dad Arizona. My sister and I traveled between the […]

Hello Summer! Is it just me, or have you been waiting for it as much as I have?  Long sunny carefree days and no school lunches are something to celebrate in my house. After living in California for 11 years now, I need warm temperatures and lots of sunlight. Summer delivers both in abundance.  Summertime […]

Jesse Ziff Cool is my featured Changemaker this month. For my non-local readers, Cool is a well-known Silicon Valley chef who has been dedicated to sustainable agriculture and cuisine for more than four decades–long before “farm-to-table” was a catchphrase. To be clear, despite many comparisons, she is not Alice Waters. Nor is she trying to be. […]

Fresh blueberries always remind me of summer.  Well, that and the well-known children’s book “Blueberries for Sal” by Robert McCloskey, which I must have read to my boys 1,000 times when they were little.  Blueberries are a wonderful, tasty summer fruit.  Loaded with fiber, potassium, iron, vitamin C, and vitamin B6, they are believed to […]

Gravlax is a huge favorite of both mine and my husband. Honestly, I prefer to eat salmon like this or sashimi-style rather than cooked. The most common question I’ve heard about gravlax is how it is different from smoked salmon.  Being a New Yorker (yes, even after living on the West Coast all these years […]

My whole family is obsessed with Mexican food. It’s recently become a thing. My husband has made it a practice to take the boys to various local Mexican taquerias for either breakfast or lunch in search of the “best taco“. My boys were hooked after the second outing. Their love of tacos and tortas is […]

Have you ever heard of a bee’s knees cocktail? I sure hadn’t, but I’m very glad I found it. The phrase “Bees Knees” has been around since the 1920s and was often used to describe something “of excellence” or that was considered to be “the best“. Bee’s Knees, the cocktail, is traditionally a gin-based “sour” […]

Summer really is a wonderful thing. We wait all year for it and thankfully it sticks around for a bit. Even living in California I appreciate Summer. After 11 years I have fully acclimated to warmer temperatures. Everyone said it would happen, but I never believed them. Now I do. I’m totally cold when it’s […]

This is a fun dish and a great seasonal one for warmer weather. I love to serve it with Noah’s cod cakes. I’m a big quinoa fan. I have basically stopped eating rice, and I do watch my carbs–so quinoa and riced cauliflower have become my go-to’s.  Quinoa is a gluten-free, high-protein plant food containing […]

My fascination with mocktails continues.  I’m not typically a juice drinker, so coming up with mocktail recipes on the less-sweet side has been a fun project.  This recipe for a sparkling orange-carrot mocktail took me some time to fine-tune, but it’s a winner and super refreshing on a hot day. Even though I don’t love […]

As I have said before, I love cookies; but shortbread cookies are on my list of top five favorites. Unlike a traditional cookie, shortbread cookies are meant to be slightly crumbly (as opposed to soft). Shortbread is a Scottish biscuit traditionally made with one part sugar, two parts butter, three parts flour–and no eggs. Lots […]

A charcuterie board is a great, easy go-to for entertaining and it works year-round. If it is made well and is visually appealing, it will be desirable to any non-vegetarian guest. Seriously.  Most people love a great charcuterie.  The word, pronounced  “shar-cute-er-ree”, means “pork-butcher’s shop“. The word is derived from the French word “chair” (meaning meat) and “cuit” […]