I love finding the products and things of life that are just dependable, satisfying, and perfect; items that I want to stock up on, Y2K style, for fear they will stop being produced at some point. I often think I could so easily be a spokesperson for these products because I genuinely love them and practically want to shout it from the rooftops...
Read MoreThis goes down in history as one of the prettiest dishes to photograph/serve/eat. It’s so colorful, silky, and multi dimensional—it looks gorgeous from every angle. It’s actually incredibly simple to make, too, and I don’t feel it’s very sensitive to such things as what ingredients you throw in (don't fret if you don't have exactly what my version calls for), what dish you cook it in, etc. The most important thing to keep in mind is seasoning! Eggs need proper seasoning—namely salt and pepper—but fresh herbs and sharp cheese go so, so well too.
Read MoreThis is a topic that feels so relevant to people our age, and I've been asked to write about it. Many of us know all too well the struggle of making friends for the first time in several years, and now with the added difficulty of it being out there in the real world as opposed to at school. I've given a lot of thought and reflection to what has helped me, as well as other people I know, make friends in post grad life.
Read MoreJon is a man of many hats—one of the more common ones is workman. He has completely gutted and/or renovated and/or built out all three of his restaurants, and he really, really enjoys it. He is currently engaged in the overhaul of the kitchen at the bar, and on Sunday, he and two friends planned to work on it all day. I thought it would be nice to bring them over lunch, so I made what is my favorite deli meat sandwich, inspired by one from a local bakery that I can't get enough of: good white bread, roast beef, provolone, arugula, red onion, and caper mayo with a little bit of horseradish. Grilled. And served with kettle chips. It's perfection.
Read MoreWhen I first saw this DIY on Pinterest, I loved it, but I also sighed in disappointment at how involved and difficult it looked. Isn't that always how DIY projects go? One night at midnight you pin 13 projects that you're all jazzed up about, only to wake up the next day and wonder what came over you that you thought you'd actually pursue these crafts. That's a little how I felt with this one, inspired by A Beautiful Mess, but as it turns out, for no reason! This is not nearly as involved as it looks, and the materials were also inexpensive. Plus, the final product is stinkin' cute! Worth it.
Read MoreMy best friend has coined these things ‘pumpkin delights’ because they’re actually the most delightful and heavenly little cookies of all time. These are another of my grandma’s recipes, and certainly one of my favorites. They are soft and pillowy and cakey, with incredible frosting made by caramelizing brown sugar and butter. They are the perfect pumpkin cookie—with no fake pumpkin flavor or forced sweetness or too many spices. I can’t express how much I love them. If you’re going to bake anything this fall, bake these!
Read MoreAnd put on a hat on it for fall...
Read MoreFor all my office worker bees, or anyone who packs a lunch during the week: this is for you! I understand the effort required to A. make lunch ahead of time, B. pack it up for work, C. make and pack up a lunch for work that still sounds appetizing come lunchtime when there are paninis/pizza/pho just around the river bend AKA block. I rely on make-ahead lunches for work and I promise I’ll only ever tell you about them if they’re worth it. Chicken salad is one of my favorite things to make because there are so many directions you can go with it (traditional, with celery and tarragon / summery a la Pioneer Woman with sweet corn, blueberries, and feta / Asian, loaded with veggies, Sriracha sauce, and sesame notes—the list goes on), and all feel indulgent and satisfying.
Read MoreThe number of times I have wandered around Sephora, filled my arms with 13 different lip stains/pencils/sticks/creams that I so clearly needed, decided that I was poor and insane and then immediately set them all down and left the store empty handed, is, well, TOO many to count. Am I alone in that? I feel like I'm not alone in that...
Read MoreI’m such a sucker for sports culture—the comradery, the excitement, the sportsmanship, the win-big together / lose-big together attitude, the drinking, the tailgating, everything. I’ve never been a diehard sports fan, although I loved playing sports myself, but I love the community surrounding sports. There’s a book by political scientist Robert Putnam from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government called Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. It is about the decline in all forms of social and communal engagement among Americans—and he famously uses the example of how the number of people who bowl has increased in the US, but membership in bowling leagues has steadily declined over the last couple of decades. Putnam is concerned about the education, enrichment, and general sense of civic duty being lost if people choose to do these kinds of activities alone, rather than with other people. (I promise this will eventually be about pulled pork)
Read MoreGreek food and Thai food—the two cuisine types I crave most often. Luckily, we have some really great Greek restaurants in Rochester that consistently deliver great flavor. But every now and then, I really love making a Greek feast at home. This usually comes in the form of pitas with chicken or steak, tzatziki, grilled onions, tomatoes and cucumbers, the works. But this time, we used some of the same great ingredients to go in a totally different direction. These petite lamb chops are my favorite way to eat lamb, because they're so easy to cook, they're tender and full of flavor, and they're much less gamey than other cuts of the lamb. Lamb chops were actually what converted me into a lamb lover (after a couple of years spent traumatized—because bad lamb is bad bad bad), so consider them a gateway of sorts. Topped with herbaceous, lemony gremolata, and served alongside endless pita bread and hummus, this Greek feast is top notch.
Read MoreI’ve had an obsession with office and paper supplies my entire life. Getting my list of required school supplies was a little piece of Christmas in August (July sometimes, if the gods were listening) throughout all of elementary school. Milky pens, stickers, Sharpies, post-it notes, paper clips, to-do list pads, you’ve all held a weirdly special place in my heart at some point or another. This may remain, today, one of the best parts of having a desk job. But in my adulthood, my favorite piece of the office supply world has been stationery—note cards, thank you cards, personalized letterhead, etc., and I cannot get enough of this stuff.
Read MoreFrench toast is the ultimate breakfast comfort food. It starts with smelling it while it’s cooking. I have this thing about the smell of eggs on a skillet and it might be one of my favorite smells in the world. With French toast, though, the scent isn’t just eggs. It’s buttery, custardy, and just absolutely dreamy. Another thing about French toast is that I’m not sure what’s more satisfying—having someone cook it for you, or cooking it for someone else. Also, how gorgeous is a plate of French toast topped with a pat of butter and glossy hot maple syrup? Clearly I could go on forever—I’m telling you, it’s the stuff comfort is made of.
Read MoreI've talked with several of my friends about how we believe our twenties are a very tumultuous time, and not purely because of the stresses or the responsibilities or the pressures that are so commonly associated with other life stages. It's more that our twenties are proving to be a strange dichotomy of sorts. We constantly jockey between trying to figure out what we want to do and telling ourselves we have plenty of time to figure it out. We can be convinced we're still so young, and the next moment be convinced we are in full blown real-human-being adulthood. We feel pressure to find love and get engaged and have a picture-perfect wedding, but find temporary comfort in reading that statistically, people are getting married and having children older in life than ever before, in many cases due to career aspirations. We've experienced the freedom and independence that college provided, but we're learning that college was another kind of bubble all on its own. We're seeking stability just as often as we're running the other way from it. And we run the gamut of married with kids to going back to grad school and relocating after working for three years to suddenly single after a six year relationship to living for the weekends and struggling to find purpose at work.
Read MoreI'm constantly searching for cures for the Sunday Scaries. Sundays begin with such promise—slowly, in bed, with coffee, drenched in morning light. But I find they always very quickly morph into day-before-Monday mode and suddenly feel daunting and depressing (dramatic but true). I like Sundays to be filled with just enough productivity to trick me into feeling like it's any other day, and just enough relaxation to slow the clock a little. My favorite solution so far, especially in the cooler weather of fall: cooking laid back low-and-slow meals or low maintenance soups. It's a leisurely way to be productive without the whirlwind feeling of cooking/eating/cleaning/digesting (and repeat) that so often comes along with cooking meals.
Butternut squash is one of those seasonal foods that is so exciting to see again after so many months of not even thinking about it. It even looks like fall, with its beautiful orangey gold color. And even though it's not a Thai ingredient, it lends itself really well to Thai flavors such as curry, coconut, and chiles.
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