At The Martha Stewart Show

The alarm went off at 6 am, but I really didn’t need it as I’d hardly slept a wink. I was too excited and my body clock went off at 5 am, though I managed to coax myself into a few more minutes of sleep. Breakfast was just a glass of milk, not enough to fill me up but just enough to stave off the hunger pangs and last minute dashes to the ladies room.

My new dress shoes felt comfortable enough until I started briskly walking the streets of New York City, then I began to wish I had worn my nice fuzzy LL Bean Comfort Mocs instead. They aren’t nearly as cute but so much more comfortable and warm. My toes were freezing as I stood in line outside the studio building and grew numb as the wait stretched on. Read more

Share

Four Years and Counting

Four years ago today…

We were living somewhere else with our two sons.

We found out we were going to have another child.

I was playing around with recipes and porting them to WordPress, my chosen organizational tool, when I found a comment from a complete stranger. Then it hit me: people were visiting my silly little site that I hadn’t told anyone about. Suddenly I realized I had a blog. Then I panicked. Read more

Share

Ringing Out 2009 & Our Best Of

2009 was a learning year. I started off the year learning how to use my new camera and am so glad we made that investment. The learning curve was steep even though I had been using manual mode in my little point & shoot camera for two years, but I’m finally seeing results and improving my photography.

We celebrated the third anniversary of this little cooking blog in January, and as I think about it I can hardly believe it’s been almost four years. I’ve learned so much while working on this blog and have made some wonderful friends that I treasure.

In February I offered to be a recipe tester for a new cookbook from Culinary Media Network, and I’m so glad Chef Mark and Jennifer took me up on it. The recipes were delicious and it was a lot of fun to play around, give feedback, and take some photos. The big surprise came when Mark and Jennifer asked to use three of my photos in the new cookbook which was released in July (The Gilded Fork: Entertaining At Home). Mark and Jennifer, congratulations again on your new book and thank you for letting me be a part of it!

In June I accompanied Michael on one of his trips to Germany and had a fabulous time traveling around and photographing the area and sampling the food. My visit to the Stuttgart Markthalle is one of my favorite memories.

In September I traveled to San Francisco for the first annual BlogHer Food conference and it was indeed a weekend to remember. The sessions were informative and being in the company of so many fantastic food bloggers was inspirational. Getting to meet some of my favorite bloggers was quite a treat!

Autumn was a time of epiphany for me as I assessed the state of our family life, and I decided to take some time off from freelance work and went on hiatus from Grow Your Own for the winter so I could more easily devote time to helping our special needs sons with school. Work will always be there in one form or another, but I only get one chance to raise our sons.

And the year has ended on a high note with the word that I was invited to be in the audience for the upcoming Martha Stewart blogging show in January! I’m so excited! I’m making the trek to NYC for my first ever overnight stay in the big city—I’ve gone on a couple day trips for business but never had a chance to see anything—and I hope to catch up with some of my friends I met or wanted to meet but missed at BlogHer Food (Alice, Jennifer, Olga). If you are a food blogger and will be at the taping, let me know so we can hopefully arrange to meet. And of course I hope to have at least one amazing meal while there! I’m also looking for a decent affordable place to stay in the Chelsea area and would love some recommendations.

In closing, Michael and I want to share our favorites from the blog this year. Best wishes to you and your loved ones for a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2010.

Share

Always Looking for a Good Market

A good market will always get my attention. I think it goes back to my childhood when my parents and grandparents would take us to flea markets and we would walk all over, seeing the wares for sale. When we were young we would get tired and cranky, but as I grew older I started to appreciate the market and the bargain hunting, and I learned the fun of the negotiation by watching my dad. Then later when I was off on my own, some of my favorite and most vivid memories of my travels would include visiting indoor and outdoor markets and bazaars, such as the Qingping Market in Guangzhou; the Ladies Market and Stanley Market in Hong Kong; the outdoor markets in Bali; the little market that would set up on Sunday mornings just outside my apartment in Bogotá, where I could get great fresh meats, fruits, vegetables, and flowers, as well as the mercado de las pulgas (flea market), where I could stroll around and find all sorts of neat things; the Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar in Istanbul; and the flower market in Amsterdam.

Here in the U.S. there are many markets I would like to visit, and since I have a couple trips planned this summer, I want to do some market hunting. When Michael and I lived in Southern Maryland we frequented the market in Charlotte Hall, which had become quite vibrant, and I loved getting the fresh Amish eggs and butter. I’ve enjoyed the Central New York Regional Market in Syracuse, the Market Hall and Sheds in Charleston, and Eastern Market in DC, and I hope to take in some market action in Hawaii and San Francisco this summer! (Please leave me some good market tips for HI and SF in the comments! Perhaps I should bring along an empty suitcase on those trips…) Read more

Share

My Cooking Lesson with Chef Todd Gray

This is a story of chance meets opportunity, of how I went to a cooking demonstration thinking that I would just be a number in the crowd but in an amazing bit of luck got a three hour private cooking lesson with a famous DC chef! And it all happened this past Saturday in my own neighborhood.

Around the end of September, we received an advertising flier in the mail from Van Metre Homes announcing a big open house day on October 20 to promote their new home designs in several communities around Northern Virginia. What caught my eye was the announcement that the pros of DC’s famous Equinox Restaurant would be doing cooking demonstrations at the various sites, and Executive Chef/Co-Owner Todd Gray would be in my neighborhood only a few blocks away! Immediately I wrote the date on my calendar and made plans to attend.

I must confess that Michael and I have never been to Equinox, but it’s because DC is a little far away for us to go for an evening out, and well…there’s the boys. We take them everywhere we go because we think it’s important, and even though we have taken them to restaurants since they were only days old, the kids are still too young for a place as quietly elegant and genteel as Equinox. I can see it all in my mind…the baby dropping food on the floor, because gravity experiments are his favorite thing to do now; the 3-year-old standing up in his chair so that he can see something interesting across the room, or diving under the table to retrieve his spoon or fork for the fiftieth time; and my oldest, who is almost 5, loudly and proudly announcing that he pooped on the potty as he comes back to the table. Yeah, I’m sure the other diners would be thrilled with us! So for now we have to stick with restaurants that have a minimal noise level of around 90 decibels (equal to the noise produced by a lawn mower), but someday Michael and I are going to get a sitter and have ourselves a lovely, quiet time at Equinox.

Since I had not been to the restaurant but wanted to be prepared for the demonstration, I spent time on their website trying to learn about the Grays, the menu, cooking philosophy, history of the restaurant, and anything else I could pick up on. I read about all of their awards and Chef Gray’s five James Beard nominations, as well as their focus on fresh, local, organic produce, sustainably fished seafood, and certified humane meats. Read more

Share

Cooking Alone (and Sick)

Michael goes through phases in traveling with his job. Some months he’s only gone a day or two here and there, and others he’s gone for a week or more. Those weeks when he’s gone, like this one, I find myself dropping everything, including cooking, just to keep up with the kids. And this week it’s a real challenge since Mommy is sick with a yucky cold.

So what does a Mom who loves to cook do when she is sick and exhausted from keeping up with three little boys but still has to feed them and herself? First, I fix myself a nice hot lemon toddy several times a day! Then for our meals, I clean out the refrigerator, thaw stuff from the freezer, and prepare very simple favorites. The Day 1 plan is always to finish any leftovers in the refrigerator, and then the rest of the week we may have any of the following: Read more

Share

Next Page »