I absolutely hate the idea of paying $3.49 for six frozen waffles. Yet, I have been because once summer hits I lose all inclination to stand at the stove and flip pancakes.
That’s why Van’s All Natural …

I partially bought the drug-company spin on Singulair in January largely because I wanted to:
The Food and Drug Administration found no link between the popular asthma drug and increased suicide risk, which led manufacturer Merck …

Here’s one I never would have guessed in a million years would have been an issue for Big Guy at school: Eczema.
He’s had outbreaks lately, which he does this time every year as the weather …

Want to kick off a cat fight? Confine hundreds of people in a cramped, narrow tube 30,000 feet above the ground and put them in proximity to something they can’t stand.
In the case of Southwest …

It was late on a Friday and we were still at the grocery store way past dinner time, which means the guys were prone to beg for extras and I was inclined to give in.
That …

They never believed me.
From the time Big Guy started eating solid foods, I insisted that it be done the “right” way - the way doctors recommend for any child, but particularly for one with a …

This one landed in my Twitter stream just as Boots was diving into a bowl of … Cocoa Puffs: “New peanut flour warning for General Mills cereals.”
Luckily, he’s not the child who’s allergic and Big …

Here’s a concern that had never occurred to me as a parent of child with food allergies because I’ve been spoiled by our school’s concerned, considerate reaction in dealing with Big Guy’s peanut allergy this …

A Virginia man with food allergies orders a burger then digs in without checking.
He has a reaction, and now he’s filed a whopper of a suit against Burger King, claiming the sandwich made him sick.
The …

Get rid of a few eggs and evict the peanut butter and before you know it a kid thinks he’s king of the cupboard by the time he’s in kindergarten.
Such was the case with Big …

Talk about good evidence but the wrong assumption.
New test results presented this week at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology’s annual meeting showed that 2 percent of foods without any type of allergy …

Next to “bop brother over the head” and baseball, “pretend I’m not allergic” is Big Guy’s favorite game.
Boots will sit with their toy cash register as his brother orders at McDonald’s. “I’ll have chicken nuggets, …

Allergy-wise, it’s been a disastrous weekend.
We showed up at a birthday party to see bowls of peanuts among the snacks. It freaked Big Guy out, but I’ve been trying to teach him to avoid rather …

There is one, and only one, pizza place we go to in town.
We don’t even go there often, because we’ve cut back drastically on eating out. Still, the guys deserve a treat once in a …

It started with an article in British Medical Journal in which an American doctor claimed parents are in the grip of a “nut hysteria” that is fueling irrational fears about allergic reactions to peanuts.
The doctor, …

Dad has to drop some poundage pronto, which means he’s eating like a bunny this week.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Well, if she hadn’t baked all those cookies …” But it’s really not my …

This is an absolute favorite for Boots and me. Dad, not so much. Big Guy, won’t touch it yet even though I play up the cheese and cream when describing it. Sometimes even the best …

I’ve been hitting the freezer and the recipe archives of late in an effort to right the guys’ nutritional ship. Not that a dish with a half-pound of cream cheese is exactly healthful, but at …

Looking for a way to end the junk-food bender and make use of some leftovers at the same time?
Tonight, I’m clearing the fridge of vegetable-tray remnants by making roasted cauliflower, a side dish Boots proclaims …

You think your food bill is high?
I pay $6.49 a quart for egg-free mayonnaise and count myself lucky that one store carries it locally. The peanut-butter subsitute we prefer is $21 for two, five-pound pails …

Ever play Cookbook Bingo? OK, so maybe that’s just here.
The game involves being bored with all the usual dishes and thumbing through pages looking for something new to make. In this case, I needed a …

It cracks me up when someone takes a basic dish from another country, slaps a gourmet label on it and transforms simple to upscale.
Such is the case with humble hummus. It’s been a staple in …

This frankly is not a kid favorite — except for Boots, who is famous worldwide for eating anything. But I love it even though I hate tomato, so I make it and listen to Big …

I hadn’t made these in years due to lack of a garlic-free hot sauce, but once I discovered Crystal, it was easy to convert.
It’s also easy to make a hot and a mild version from …

Merry Christmas to me!
My lust for kitchen tools is no secret. Where it gets a little weird, though, is the depths of the strange desires.
A baguette pan long has been my wildest fantasy — I’m …

Scones really are nothing more than a biscuit with a bit of sugar and a good PR agent. Except Big Guy won’t eat biscuits.  He used to, but somewhere between 1 and 2 he went …

I am not the hot sauce connoisseur in the house. That would be Dad, and I’m not so sure he’s as much connoisseur as addict. Honestly, I’ve seen him hit the fridge late at night …

I knew marshmallows were supposed to contain egg. I was spoiled, though, the first two years of Big Guy’s egg allergy by having never run into a grocery-store variety with egg in it.
So I blithely …

The first time I made this recipe for the kids, it caused serious problems.
Boots was only about a year and a half old, and chocolate tended to cause, er, gastrointestinal disturbances. The next morning, he …

This recipe makes a lot. As in, half it unless you’re on a serious sugar bender. Or plan to freeze part of it. Or leave them all in the cookie jar and make a serious …

Big Guy was just a babe when his egg allergy was diagnosed, but he was old enough to mourn his beloved pancakes. Aside from oatmeal, it was his favorite breakfast at the time.
I rarely …

The guys’ 11-year-old cousin proclaims these “the best cookies she’s ever made.”
That might be a bit misleading: they’re also the only cookies she’s ever made.
Slightly deceptive endorsement aside, it is a good cookie. Crunchy on …

Until I discovered Vegenaise in the refrigerated section of the natural-foods aisle at a local grocery store, I’d pretty much accepted life without potato or pasta salad.
I’d tried a number of other egg-free mayonnaises, mostly …

This is our Christmas morning stand-by breakfast. It’s easier to do on the fly than the guys’ favorite pancakes, and they like it almost as well. It does take a bit of advance work, though.
It’s …

Take a candy, wrap cookie dough around it, bake, swirl in frosting and shower with sprinkles: It’s a Christmas cookie just made for kids to make a mess with.
The recipe comes from “Betty Crocker’s Baking …

Sometimes you can tell a recipe’s going to be evil just by its name: Seven-layer bars, seven deadly sins. Coincidence? No.
These cookie bars have no nutritionally redeeming qualities — I refuse to count graham-cracker crumbs …

One of Big Guy’s saddest laments in life is that he’s sunflower-seed deprived.
This wouldn’t be a big deal for most kids, but he’s growing up around his Dad’s family of world-class sunflower seed munchers so …

It’s amazing sometimes what you’ll find digging around in the archives — and when it comes to recipes, my archives rival the Library of Congress.
This week, when I was poking through a fishing-tackle box that …