• How to Make Salted Caramel Sauce

    How to Make Salted Caramel Sauce

  • The Real Reason French Women Don't Get Fat: Trout en Papillotte

    The Real Reason French Women Don't Get Fat: Trout en Papillotte

  • Sweet Dark Cherry Clafouti

    Sweet Dark Cherry Clafouti

  • Hot Fudge Sundae

    Homemade Hot Fudge

  • fondant au chocolat

    Just a Simple French Chocolate Cake

Candied Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies: a Marriage Made in Heaven

Candied Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies: a Marriage Made in Heaven

Bacon and chocolate, together in a cookie, are, most definitely, a marriage made in heaven. As candied bacon tends to disappear in our house, I have to quickly grab a couple of strips to hide when I make a new batch. A couple of strips is plenty to give these chocolate chip cookies a hintContinue Reading

Chicago Cooking Classes and Writing Conferences: Making Room for Mom in Summer Mayhem

Chicago Cooking Classes and Writing Conferences: Making Room for Mom in Summer Mayhem

Summer vacation finally started yesterday in our house. Talk shifted to tennis whites, pool towels, and sunscreen instead of homework due dates and tests. There’s plenty of time for freedom and playing in the grass, but I’ve learned in summers past that too much free time leads to overwhelming choruses of boredom and fighting. SoContinue Reading

Tarte aux Pommes

Tarte aux Pommes

The last recipe I’ll share with you from our Anthony Eats picnic is this recipe for French Apple Pie, aka Tarte Aux Pommes. Although few things are as American as apple pie, the French are pretty proud of their take on apple tarts, and deservedly so. French apple pies have wafer thin apple slices, butteryContinue Reading

Salade Nicoise: a Picnic Salad to Please the Whole Family

Salade Nicoise: a Picnic Salad to Please the Whole Family

In France, salad comes at the end of the meal. Instead of warming up your palate, it washes everything down, clearing the palate for cheese and dessert. I hated salad with a passion, called it cow food, but was still forced to force down a few token leaves every night before being admitted to theContinue Reading

Quiche Lorraine: Bacon, Swiss and Picnic Bliss

Quiche Lorraine: Bacon, Swiss and Picnic Bliss

When you think of summer picnics, does quiche come to mind? You might have relegated quiche to that folder in your mind labeled 80s concepts best forgotten, but I’m hoping that after you read this post, you’ll layer your picnic basket with rich and butter individual quiches for when the summer finally arrives. Not onlyContinue Reading

Chunky Chicken and Vegetable Alphabet Soup to Gear up for Summer Frenzy

Summer is the time of freedom, of flashlight tag, capture the flag marathons spread over days, and movie nights on weeknights. But it’s also the time when meals can start to slide towards the less healthy: hot dogs by the pool, daily Italian ices, and burgers at swim meets. Having a batch of homemade soupContinue Reading

Rules of Civility and Gods of Gotham: Two Summer Reading List Must Haves

Rules of Civility and Gods of Gotham: Two Summer Reading List Must Haves

My kids are two weeks away from their last school bell of the year. They’re counting the days, and so am I. I should be busy buying sunscreen and swimsuits, but instead I’m planning my summer reading. Once my monsters are out, free, and wild, I won’t have the time to pile my nightstand withContinue Reading

Candied Bacon Sprinkles

Candied Bacon Sprinkles

Candied bacon sprinkles? You’re either raising your eyebrows or licking your lips right now. I personally was in the raised eyebrow camp the first time I was served candied bacon on an ice cream sundae. I love bacon probably more than most people, and love that sweet and salty combinations, but bacon on ice creamContinue Reading

Using Journaling to Talk to Tweens: Mother Daughter Diaries

Using Journaling to Talk to Tweens: Mother Daughter Diaries

Ever since I could put pen to paper, I’ve had a diary. My mom recently found my first one and sent it to me, the kind with the lock, although the lock was long gone. The first few pages are filled with colorful drawings, then the pages move to cramped, furious script, long diatribes aboutContinue Reading

Peach and Wild Blueberry Muffins: the Essence of Summer

Peach and Wild Blueberry Muffins: the Essence of Summer

Block Island is a tiny and beautiful place off the coast of Rhode Island; it’s so small that you can bike around the entire island in two hours. It’s truly the kind of place where you can pack a few t-shirts, shorts, and sweatshirts and not feel underdressed at any restaurant. Steve and I headedContinue Reading

Dry Roasted Pork Shoulder to Combat Spring Sports Schedule

Dry Roasted Pork Shoulder to Combat Spring Sports Schedule

This big hunk of slow roasted pork shoulder is more powerful than it looks. More than a mound of melt in your mouth tender pork, it’s a dinner solution for little league baseball late nights. Every April, little league baseball takes over our family. My husband coaches my son’s team and their practice and gameContinue Reading

Food Blog Forum Recap: Could Pinterest Be the New SEO?

Food Blog Forum Recap: Could Pinterest Be the New SEO?

Food Blog Forum 2013 in Orlando was amazing, as amazing you would think a food blogger conference at Disney would be. Stalk Julie from the Little Kitchen immediately if you haven’t already been following her gorgeous site, to not miss any details for 2014 FBF registration, in Asheville, NC. Tickets sold out in less thanContinue Reading

Disney Insider Tips: No Reservations Necessary

Disney Insider Tips: No Reservations Necessary

We’re in Disney this weekend for the Food Blog Forum. People are often surprised that a world traveling family like ours would be Disney fans, but we do enjoy a Disney long weekend. Getting a life size Pooh bear hug is a pretty great experience and the Magic Kingdom fireworks never fail to make meContinue Reading

Facing the Fear of BRCA and a Family Breast Cancer Legacy

Facing the Fear of BRCA and a Family Breast Cancer Legacy

Angelina Jolie revealed yesterday that she had a preventative mastectomy after discovering that she is a carrier of one of the BRCA gene. The news hit close to home. The timing seems relevant so I thought I would share my BRCA story. Bored during a stupefyingly hot summer afternoon, my cousin and I decided toContinue Reading

Soy Glazed Roasted Sweet Potatoes and a New Approach to Feeding Picky Eaters

Soy Glazed Roasted Sweet Potatoes and a New Approach to Feeding Picky Eaters

I love sweet potatoes. I love them baked. I love them mashed with butter and crunchy flakes of salt. I love them in kielbasa stew and in hand pies. I love them forgotten to bathe in the fat of a slowly roasting chicken. But no matter how much you love something, no matter how much yourContinue Reading

Food as Medicine: Your Favorite Comfort Food Recipes Needed Stat

Food as Medicine: Your Favorite Comfort Food Recipes Needed Stat

When people are sick, my first instinct is to feed them: big bowls of chicken tortellini soup, hot challah from the oven, creamy spaghetti bolognese. Watching my father being fed the same vanilla flavored nutrition liquid through a nasal tube for the last five months has been one of the many painful aspects of hisContinue Reading

Mango Shrimp Tacos and Asian Steak Tacos: Taco Night Al Fresco Fiesta!

Mango Shrimp Tacos and Asian Steak Tacos: Taco Night Al Fresco Fiesta!

Taco night has been a longstanding tradition in our household, long before we relocated to Chicago. But the rich Mexican community here and the abundance of delicious taco joints has inspired us to take taco night to a whole new level. Taco night used to mean seasoned ground beef served with a few colorful bowlsContinue Reading

Life Lessons in the Little League Dug Out

Life Lessons in the Little League Dug Out

I never gave much thought about the different dynamics of sports until my kids started playing them. I’d played soccer, basketball, and softball, with varying skill, but didn’t realize how different their rhythms were. A missed pass is forgotten quickly during a soccer game but on the baseball field all eyes are on the playerContinue Reading

My Long Road to Lactation: New Chicago Parent Article

My Long Road to Lactation: New Chicago Parent Article

I have a new personal essay published in this month’s Chicago Parent magazine entitled My Long Road to Lactation, all about how it took me three kids to become a nursing mother. I got comfortable nursing with Juju and was a pro when Sophie arrived as a tiny preemie, ready to deal with pumps andContinue Reading

A Poetic Cry for Help Lost in a Sea of Paper

A Poetic Cry for Help Lost in a Sea of Paper

Periodically, my children’s backpacks explode onto the kitchen counter, overflowing with weeks worth of graded homework, unit tests, and all the other paperwork that fills their school lives. It sits on the counter for a few days before I can find a quiet morning to sift through it and find the gems worth saving, theContinue Reading

Caramelized Banana Dutch Babies: One Dish Breakfast Solutions To Feed Big Families

Caramelized Banana Dutch Babies: One Dish Breakfast Solutions To Feed Big Families

Breakfast for six is a tall order. Bella doesn’t eat fruit. Jack doesn’t like breakfast. Steve likes a toasted bagel with cream cheese, pepper, and ruby red tomato slices. And both Juju and Baby Sophie like a feast of little tastes. Me? I like to sleep in and be woken with a steaming caffe latte and lotsContinue Reading