Stocking the fridge when guests come can be stressful.  Everyone comes equipped with their own unique tastes and dietary needs.  That’s why it’s important to choose items that have some universal appeal.  This week members of my family, including a few wee ones, from all corners of the U.S. have kindly come to visit and check out my new house.   Finding foods that please the babies, grandma, aunties, and uncles, can be a challenge.  Because time is a premium, it’s also very important to use recipes that are simple and require only a few steps.  Why spend time in the kitchen when you could be visiting with your family?  Slow...

Tags: vacation, cooking, family, guests

Have you recovered from losing an hour last week as our clocks “sprang forward?”  The time shift is a harbinger of spring, and even here in chilly Minne-snow-ta (as my out of state friends call it), daylight has lingered for much longer this week than it has in a very, very long time. Before life gets busy with all the obligations of spring, like Saturday m...

Tags: Breakfast, pancakes, Books, family, reading

I recently tried to replicate a cake that my aunt used to make when I was a kid, a spice cake with peanut butter frosting.  I loved it and looked forward to it every time there was a family gathering at her house.  She hosted the whole extended family just about every July 4th, since her house had a pool to keep us kids occupied.  There is even a picture of me eating this cake—I must be about five or six, in a wet bathing suit, wrapped in a towel sitting at her picnic table decidedly focused on my cake, probably anticipating the sparklers and fireworks to come later that evening.  Inevitably, the cake would be accompanied by a tall plastic tumbler of red fruit pu...

Tags: cake, family, memories, peanut butter