Dad’s Favorite Spicy Sausage Soup with Kale

I spent eight years of my life in Los Angeles going to college, falling in love, and enacting all of the insecure “what do I want to do with my life?!” agony that a young twenty-something faces. After college I went to school for make-up artistry in Burbank, and spent lots of days in a hot room with other girls who liked lipstick. We learned how to do makeup for every occasion, and then we learned how to make realistic bullet holes and third degree burns. I worked as a photographer, taking head-shots of other insecure twenty-somethings trying to make it in Hollywood. I worked as a teacher. That was my favorite job. Kids are never boring. Ever. […]

Rustic Beef, Tomato & Cabbage Stew

There are few things I find more satisfying than a bowl of soup!

In the same vein, there are few things I find more dissatisfying than coming home to a sad, random, slightly bare and slightly rotten fridge. You know the kind. Maybe you go away for a weekend, and then Monday evening rolls around. You open up your fridge to discover a couple of carrots, an egg carton with one whole egg and six egg shells (whoops), half a cabbage, and a Tupperware full of  already-dressed, already-soggy salad. This feels bad. This feels confrontational. Your fridge doesn’t seem to get that you are hungry and you need it to go to the store for you. You’re tired. You’re hungry. You’re in no mood for grocery shopping. You protest by eating half a jar of pickles. […]

Mom’s Super Healing Chicken Stew

Fact: There are times in life when you need your Mama-Bear, no matter how old you are.

Fact: Yes, I sometimes refer to my Mom as Mama-Bear. No one should look surprised. Does she call me Baby-Bear in return? Maybe. Am I nearly thirty years old? Affirmative. Just go with it.

Fact: Mama-Bears are really good at making ordinary food taste like liquid gold.

For example, while I was under the weather this past weekend my Mom whipped me up a chicken stew that tasted like fifty billion liquid hugs. I’m not kidding. It tasted like growing up, and all the times I had the sniffles. It smelled like my grandmother’s kitchen on a wintry day. Through the scent of it bubbling on the stove came the memories, through the memories came the feelings of familiarity and warmth, and through that warmth came a deep feeling of love. Who ever thinks love is not a legit ingredient in cooking is wrong. Or, maybe they’ve just never tasted a Mama-Bear’s chicken stew. That’s okay. I’ll show you how it’s done. […]

Baked Beef & Red Wine Stew

So, I’ve been having a love affair. No, love affair sounds cheap and fleeting.  Hmm…

Ok, I have been having a full on committed relationship.

With Beef.

Most of my friends know this about me.  When asked my favorite breakfast I will almost always say “Steak and Eggs…hold the eggs.”  I’m the girl that doesn’t even have to reheat leftover steak. I will go National Geographic on a T-bone at 8am.

Steak and I don’t  see each other that often anymore. I’ve been having this thing on the side with kale and some late nights with re-fried black beans and their hussy friends, the corn tortillas.  Oh, and Green Juice. That has been getting hot and heavy.

But when steak and I get together, magic happens. […]