Food Connections

The Burger Bar Decade birthdays. They feel huge and important and sometimes disconcerting. But here we were, Charlie turning 60 and we just had to celebrate. For past decades, we have celebrated by having golf tournaments and wearing silly shirts, doing roasts and...

Fourth of July Some holidays have a way of becoming about the food. The Fourth is certainly one of those holidays. For years, we gathered with a bunch of friends in our backyard, where we would grill burgers, eat watermelon and eventually, pulled...

Rocktober! Go Rockies!! It's completely amazing, but our own Rockies are going to the World Series. Ok, I admit, I'm a fair-weather, jump-on-the-winning-bandwagon type of fan. But it's hard to avoid the excitement and amazement of this town right now, which...

Family Parties When you live hundreds or thousands of miles away from family, opportunities for gatherings are few and far between. There are times that this seems like a blessing: family drama, misunderstandings & day-to-day prying can often be avoided, but avoided...

Birthday's keep on giving I love the adult birthday. As a kid, the anticipation of the big day was, of course, exquisite, the day itself indulgent and completely self-focused, the only day of the year that this happened. But the adult birthday celebration is...

Salmon Ravioli & Coming Home It's a fact of life: stay away from where you grew up for any length of time, and you will begin craving something that you can only get THERE. It may be green burritos or In & Out Burgers in...

Picky or Discerning? I had one of those milestone birthdays this week. And I have been celebrating. Birthdays for me are really week long affairs, with multiple dinners, lunches and breakfasts spent with good friends. By the end of it all, I am...

Fat Tuesday Today is Fat Tuesday. Officially, it's the day before Lent begins. Worldwide, it is the day of the biggest indulgence of the year, complete with wild parties, parades, crazy revelers, beads and too much of everything. At my house, Lent...

Happy Birthday, Jillian! My youngest child turns 19 today. We love to make a huge deal of birthdays around here. The birthday honoree is queen (or king) for the day, which includes getting to choose all the menus for the day. For weeks...

The chicks return Coats are draped over chairs. Pet toads and fish sit on the countertop. Shoes litter the floor. There is stuff EVERYWHERE. Yes, it's holiday time and the girls are home for Thanksgiving vacation. Fortunately, along with the clutter comes the...

Bigger and better things... Change. Upheaval. Challenge. Excitement. All are a part of new experience, new jobs, new phases of our lives. Each new thing leaves something behind, and of course, looks forward to something new. I have so many people in my life...

Empty Nests It's true. It's empty. Absolutely empty. No chattering. No daughters and their friends laughing and watching stupid movies. No lounging around with my daughters watching tv and laughing at the same jokes. No hearing their funny stories as they get...

Final Meals? No, this isn't a commentary on final meals before death. This "final" meal is merely the last home cooked meal before being at the mercy of college dorm food workers, fast food workers, or the dullness of cooking for yourself....

Mojitos on the Patio? This is the fourth day in a row that the thermometer has gone over 100, which is a little disturbing, particularly when the plan is for a little get-together on the back deck. There is only one way to face...

Viva la France! We are Francophiles. Unapologetically. We love Paris, French cheese, French wines, and of course, French food. We love the way the French can take 3 hours to eat lunch and we love seeking out cheeses, wines, fruits, pastries and other...

A Nod to Italian Eating Our menu tonight is a nod to one of our favorite places: Italy. You really should try this terrific salad. The peppery flavor of arugula, combined with chunks of rare beef and shavings of nutty Parmegiano Reggianno cheese is truly...