Grain-Free Lemon Apricot Yogurt Cake + How Social Media Makes Me Feel Like A Big Fat Failure

Hello. How are you? I made you cake.

In truth, I made you this cake months ago, but I didn’t share it with you then. Rude. I know.

More truth.

I have two speeds when I’m overwhelmed. The first speed is the high speed of my Kitchen Aid mixer making something superfluous, or the low and slow bubbling of something rich and comforting (read: this eggplant parm). Yeah, the first speed happens somewhere in my kitchen. The second speed isn’t really a speed at all. It looks more like a scared, paralyzed possum who’s instinctively playing dead.  Yes, this is perhaps the slowest speed. It’s a dead (er…playing dead) stop. This is one functional step above lying on the floor of your closet with the lights off and the door closed, foraging a bed out of your impressively large worn-out sweater collection. […]

Grain-Free Dark Chocolate Chunk and Blackberry Blondies

I’m not a baker. It’s not my thing. I don’t like to measure or follow instructions. When I’m not developing recipes, you won’t find me with a measuring cup in hand or a baking scale under foot (is that not how baking scales work? Weird). It’s cumbersome to have to be so meticulous. I come from a long line of people who write recipes with the precise measurements of “just put some soy sauce” or “use a few glugs of oil”. I was raised inside of a wild and free kitchen culture. So, as you can imagine,  I don’t like to feel the weight of science on my shoulders as we anticipate, with bated breath, to see if gluten-free brownies are going to rise. Baking is one thing, and gluten-free baking is a whole different more complicated (and sometimes frustrating) animal. You know what I’m talking about, right? Maybe you recently went gluten-free and you decided to google a recipe for bread. You are met with approximately five hundred different types of special order flours–there are many things on this list you didn’t know could even be made into a flour: Chestnuts. Sorghum. Teff. Eye of Newt. Xanthan Gum. Crickets. Unicorn Shoulder. In short, it ain’t always easy. I see you. I hear you. We are one.  […]

Baked Apples with Whipped Peanut Butter Cream

You guys! IT’S FALL!! Sure, I’m still wearing a tank top, but there is actual rain water predicted to fall from these Bay Area skies this weekend. Did you hear that?! RAIN! Temps are going to drop, I am going to stop perpetually sweating in all my nooks and crannies, and it will be seasonally appropriate to break out my well loved galoshes. […]

Grain-Free Banana Blueberry Bundt Cake with Oranges

Here we go again. I’ve allowed my counter top to turn into a banana graveyard. My husband hates this. Mostly because, banana pranks. But, lucky for him, I’m kind of a wizard when it comes to using these mushy brown spotted naners.

If I was writing an important short bio, it might look like this:

Gina is a hard worker and first class worrier, living in the SF Bay Area. She has a complicated relationship with natural deodorant, and on occasion will transform the menagerie of rotting bananas on her counter into a mothertrucking cake. She likes jazz, as long as it isn’t too smooth, and kisses her dog on the mouth. She’s married to a man who likes sandwiches, and tends to fall asleep in his “nook”–the swoopy part along his side that is neither underarm nor lap. She does not excel at jumping rope or reading maps, but makes up for these short comings with questionable charisma.

Does this sound professional? In fact, the next time I’m published in a magazine I might just submit that to go along with it. Special skills are important to list. Plus, everyone likes it when you talk about your husband’s swoopy non-armpit parts. Not uncomfortable. […]