The subject of this month’s Cookbook Dinner Club was a favorite of mine, The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash. Once again, we all chose interesting recipes to try and ended up with way too much food. On the whole, the recipes were tasty, but we found the instructions to be slightly out of date, and [...]
The Cookbook Book Club met last night and our theme was recipes from holiday issues of our favorite food magazines. Did not manage to take many photos myself, so I am poaching the ones I can find that go with the recipes. All the recipes were successful, and many will appear on tables this holiday [...]
Last weekend, we co-hosted a seasonal cooking class to benefit our school foundation. Working with Jonathan Miller, of Eat Right at Home, who created a menu of recipes suitable for the home cook, we created an event highlighting the best of our local farms. Mariquita Farms provided the vegetables; Happy Child CSA provided navel oranges [...]
Right around the New Year, Valerie of Suburban Bites suggested a cookbook dinner club via her wall on Facebook. Sort of like a book club, in that everyone “reads” the same cookbook and then gets together for a potluck dinner to discuss. Since we don’t live geographically close to each other, and because I thought [...]
Marsha and I got together on another cooking play date two weeks ago, when we busted out a sampling of recipes for faux Fred’s Steak. Fred’s Steak, a local specially marinated tri-tip from Schaub’s Meat Market, has long been a discussion for Bay Area food folks. We are dying to know how the steak comes [...]
With the end of summer, we hosted a BBQ dinner to celebrate Pat’s 80th birthday. Another great backyard party, with the help this time of my brother and sister-in-law. I served roasted leg of lamb (from Sierra Farms Lamb); Grilled chicken; Farro salad with artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes; Savory tomato bread pudding; Green pea, bacon [...]
Recently, we hosted a dinner party and served a lovely (IMHO) variety of spring foods, including spring lamb stew with baby artichokes, Bibb lettuce and parsley salad with anchovy dressing, both after a white bean and sautéed greens crostini appetizer. For dessert, I served a tray of local cheeses including a very ripe Mt. Tam [...]
Last month, we learned to cook pasta the Italian way, at a cooking party to benefit our school. Our hostesses, Lucia and Susanna, from La Bottega in Menlo Park, created a thoughtful menu highlighting three pasta dishes from the north, center and south of Italy – Linguine al Pesto, Bucatini Casio e Pepe, and Caserecce [...]
This weekend, we hosted a big birthday bash in our backyard to celebrate my Dad’s birthday. It was a lovely party (if I do say so myself) and we served roasted Tri-tip, grilled chicken, potatoes and pepperonata, cauliflower, white bean and feta salad, and a green salad. For dessert, Marie Callender’s pies (Dad’s choice) in [...]
Way back, when my daughter was born, my sister Erica brought this meal to us on our first night home from the hospital. She was able to find baby beets and turnips, and the dinner was so delightful, not only because I had been eating hospital food for two days, but because my incredibly busy [...]
corned-beefWith St Patrick’s Day around the corner (ok, tomorrow, if you want to be specific) Corned Beef and Cabbage was on the menu this weekend. Remember my menu plan from last week? We were out all day yesterday and needed to have dinner ready when we walked in the door, so I set up my [...]
