Pickled peppers. Unless I was doing tongue twisters to prepare for a voiceover, the words pickled peppers never came out of my mouth. Then, I tasted my brother Bernie’s pickled peppers and was smitten. I couldn’t believe they could be so perfectly crisp, and taste so delicious. I even liked the spicy, hot ones, a minor miracle for my wimpy tastebuds. I begged my brother to tell me…
I just watched a four part series on Netflix called, You Are What You Eat. (Definitely click on that link and check out the trailer.) If we are what we eat, I should be turning into a Costco rotisserie chicken soon. Typing won’t be easy. But it made me realize I could easily live with fewer and maybe no Costco chickens, ground turkey, pork chops, pork roasts and…
Who knew that one little change can take an ordinary vegetable like cauliflower from tasty to killer good? Apparently, my daughter did. She learns this stuff from other people’s food blogs and then tells me. The woman she currently likes is Carla Lalli Music and I can see why, she’s a great cook. At least I know my daughter got started on this food journey because of me,…
I've been watching episodes of NCIS to get me through packing. I'm on season six and still packing, but my eyes are wide open to the many ways someone could do me in. This knowledge will come in handy while driving across the country in a car with 186,000 miles on it.…
I’m coping with Covid and unemployment with exercise. Everyday I hike the local hills. I stop just before I get to the freeway overpass, then turn around and go back. I once walked under it just to prove I could do it, but I know the next time I do the mother of all earthquakes will strike and all they’ll find will be a little thigh fat. Ever…
I may be the only person able to combine those two items in one blog post. (Maybe this is why I’ve never won Food Blogger of the Year.) But, such is my life nowadays. Yesterday I found myself Googling doggie diapers. (Yes, life is riveting.) Topper is now 14 going on 15 and every so often I come down in the morning to find his bed not quite…
Since you’re probably starting to experience fall, I have the perfect recipe for the absolute best cream of mushroom soup. Eat this with a piece of crusty bread and you’ll be transported. Those of us here in the southwest wish we could be transported, having just watched summer dry out into what is now the season of hell. But I digress. At least I still have a place…
I was talking to a friend about the deliciousness of tomatoes this time of year. Our conversation reminded me of rainy days in late summer when my sister and I used to sit in the garage staring out at the rain. She’d eat a tomato sandwich and I’d eat a tomato with sprinkled with salt, loving that sweet, sun-ripened juice running down my chin. Every August and September…
Life is all backwards now. People who used to have to be dragged into the kitchen are baking and cooking up masterpieces, and people like me, who love to cook, can barely lift a spatula because I have no one to feed. Cooking for myself is nice, but it’s the sharing that’s the fun part. I can make my favorite pasta with shallots, fresh tomato, basil and whipping…
Every morning a small, gray bird plants himself outside my bedroom window and starts a high pitched chirp, like an avian Paul Revere warning the British are coming. His ear-splintering chirps sound like a chisel hitting a brick or a stone. I call him the Chisel Bird. I lay in bed thinking, There’s Dad. He’s come back as a bird with a chirp so loud he can wake…