hopeful

As I've previously mentioned, my husband and I met as Peace Corps Volunteers in Mongolia. When you share something like that (how many people can say they met their husband when he was on his way to the market to buy fermented mare's milk?), it is not surprising that certain elements of the culture and customs stick with...

I'd say that nearly 90% of what I cook for dinner can be made in 45 minutes or less, and I would venture to guess that the same is true for many of you. I put a lot of effort into planning and making good meals for my family, but I generally avoid recipes that require a lot of time; I'd rather spend that time with aforementioned...

I've rediscovered my love of Pinterest in the last few weeks. It supplied me with my Valentine's Day breakfast treat for my boys. It's where I found the idea for the paint chip bookmarks I wrote about earlier. And it lead me to this ridiculously cool tutorial on how to use a block of wood and a printout of a photograph...

Every once in a while I get on a homemade granola kick, and every time I am amazed at how good it is. This particular kick was inspired by a project referenced in an earlier post: in the process of weeding through my stacks of old cooking magazines, I came across this recipe from Molly Wizenberg, who writes at Orangette...

When I was a little girl growing up in the Chicago suburbs, there weren't too many places you could go on foot. There were, however, a few small shops just a few blocks from my house that, by the time I was in elementary school, I could walk to on my own. My two personal favorites were Mr. Gs, a hot dog stand that sold...

I have kind of a love-hate relationship with my slow cooker. There was no slow cooker included among my wedding shower haul; in fact I did not own one until about a year ago, so I'm kind of late coming to the game. The thing is, I love the idea of the slow cooker, and for the past year I've been checking out slow cooker...