Dad’s always described himself as a wannabe coffee drinker.
He’ll go out with friends and try mightily, but no matter how embarrassingly much cream and sugar he loads in, he still winds up shaming himself by …
Feeling myself flailing about a week ago, I sat down and made my anal little lists. Three, which shows exactly how anal I am.
Christmas Day menu
Grocery shopping list
To-do list, with tasks parsed out between Friday …
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 …
Other than what people who are so Pepsi-addicted they feed it to babies in bottles sneak to them behind my back and a shared diet Sierra Mist once a week with popcorn, the guys don’t …
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 …
Dear Santa,
I’m sending this via email because of course I kept procrastinating and never got the letter in the mail. I’m hoping you have your Blackberry, though please don’t check it now. NORAD tells me …
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 …
When the box arrived yesterday, Dad hustled it into our bedroom, telling the guys it was a “shipment from his new job.” That’s been the standard excuse this holiday season, and the guys aren’t old …
A police agency in a town where I once worked went through a spate of refusing to call anything an accident. Officers would dance and parse and spin and do anything to avoid the a-word.
The …
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 …
Everything was set.
A baby-sitter had agreed to take on the savage beasts, there were enough snacks to last until at least 8 and I set up the popcorn popper in case they ran out. The …
Dead technophobes can rest in peace: The Recording Industry Association of America says it’s no longer going to head straight to court in instances such the case where it accused a West Virginia granny who’d …
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 …
I don’t know if it’s my advancing age or a latent mental defect soon to emerge.
Whatever the reason, I spent three hours yesterday in dead silence, and I couldn’t have been happier.
No TV. No phone. …
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 …
It’s not exactly a seasonal favorite this time of year — except in parts of California and Florida where grills are rarely covered — but grilling recipes can be used indoors in the off season. …
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 …
I never could figure out who cookie-mix gift packs were aimed at.
Think about it: If you don’t like to bake, adding a few ingredients and turning on the oven is going to be too much …
It took Big Guy all of 3.6 seconds to get the truth out of Boots the night after the guys had gone on separate Christmas shopping trips for each other.
There was no need for beating, …
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 …
It’s a lonely, lonely world in my inbox.
My Nigerian buddies have given up on me, and I haven’t seen a bank email in ages asking me, with or without typos, to confirm my account. No …
A version of this post was originally written for another site a year ago, when the guys were 4 and 2. Their book preferences have shifted since — Big Guy’s more interested in “Your Favorite …
Don’t tell Big Guy’s teacher, but I tossed the “suggested homework” list shortly after it walked through the door at the end of the semester.
Halfway through kindergarten, I’m officially sick of homework even though I …
There’s an explanation for why I tore up the house this morning in a frantic search for my keys, only to find the ring wrapped around an index finger.
Dang it, though, where did …
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 …
