"...and they ate with gladness and simplicity of heart"
Content sponsored by #denigris1889 Last week I was interviewed for an upcoming local podcast and the interviewer asked me “what food or dish are your really excited about right now?” I admit I paused a bit longer than I should have. How do you answer when thoughts of everything edible comes piling in all at once, begging to be the one that gets the nod? I danced around the actual question and replied something to the tune of, “actually, it’s more of a sauce that I am currently ...
There are times when you don’t feel like cooking at home and you have a little fun eating out, trying new places, visiting with family and friends, and eventually you come back home. That’s what I’ve been doing lately. Have you noticed my last post here was May 4th? Yep. I’ve been out creating sponsored recipes and sharing food… a little bit here and a little bit there. 1. ARKANSAS FOOD & FARM MAGAZINE The spring issue published spotlights I wrote showcasing local food stars ...
This post is sponsored by De Nigris Italian vinegars. What is your go-to ingredient? Perhaps it is a spice, such as cumin or coriander. How about an herb? Is it thyme, cilantro, or maybe oregano? Is it cream of mushroom soup? Butter? Chicken broth? If it is red wine, please tell so we can be best friends. I have to think about what is mine. Cumin, maybe. Chicken broth, for sure. Butter, more and more than ever. Dijon mustard, yes that one is creeping up in the ranks. Same thing with ...
This is a love story where the main character is the proverbial “man vs. himself.” That “man” is me. The love story is mine. Almost thirty years ago my beloved and slightly eccentric Aunt Peggy from New Jersey died, leaving behind a household full of trinkets from travels around the world, photographs of generations of the Cole family {my maiden name}, and beautiful furniture pieces that her father, my grandpa whom I never knew, either crafted himself or had a prominent spot ...
Content sponsored by #denigris1889 Something was off. I made this dish and it didn’t work. Dennis took a bite and gave me that look that spoke volumes. It was a kind look yet one that showed sensory discomfort after that first bite. Something was off. Two weeks ago I browsed my cookbooks and Pinterest for inspiration. I was determined to make a pan of simple roasted cipollini onions with balsamic and sugar. What could go wrong? A lot. The balance was off and I couldn’t figure it out. ...
This post contains sponsored content. Mother’s Day is five weeks from now so I thought it needed it’s own “five foodie finds” edition. You know, to give us time to find the perfect gift that mom would truly want. Whenever I post “five foodie finds,” I like to highlight the unusual. Why have ordinary when you can have extraordinary? That is my philosophy, at least. One website that I often highlight is uncommongoods, based out of Brooklyn, New York. I like them because half of what they sell ...
Winter is holding tight and not letting go. So tightly that right now a raging fire is dancing in the fireplace and there is a heater blowing at my feat underneath my desk as I type these words. It’s hard to believe that spring is just short of two days away. Do you have a “go to” dish? You know, the one or ones that you know by memory and you simply cannot get enough of it? I have a couple of them and every once in a while we will have a meal and think, “will this one be the one?” Do ...
Was your first thought, “What leftover white wine?” Ha! I knew you were going to say that! While we are not big white wine drinkers, we always keep a bottle or two on hand for family and friends who are looking for something refreshingly light or sweet. During particularly busy entertaining seasons, we find ourselves with several half-used bottles of white wine in the fridge. Last weekend we had a total of three, count ‘em three, half-used bottles of white wine. Chardonnay, Muscato, and a ...
Content sponsored by #denigris1889 “This was awesome! This has to be your next BLOG,” the post-it note on my desk declared when I returned back to my office. I had the crazy idea the other day to make sushi, only sans the fish. Sure, I could make our usual avocado and cucumber rolls, yet I had another idea. I knocked on my co-worker’s door. “Knock, Knock. You got a second?” I asked him what he thought about the idea of making a chicken teriyaki or beef teriyaki sushi roll. “Is that ...
In January, the Specialty Foods Association held their Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. Wouldn’t you want to be a fly on the wall for that? Or, better yet, attending in person, discovering, and sampling over 80,000 on-trend coffees, snacks, organic, cheeses, and the list goes on and on. You would seriously have to pace yourself. One of my favorite go-to-source for food research is the Hartman Group. They keep me in-the-know of what’s hot on the food scene and with ...
I get so mad at myself when I waste food. It is completely frustrating when vegetables go past their prime or when food in the freezer is stored too long or improperly. Thankfully, I have gotten much better at both of those scenarios so that neither one is a common occurrence any more. What changed? We made the decision to stop letting it happen. We shop our refrigerator more often. We restock less often. We consciously make sure that our dinner plates have more vegetable ...
Scared to prepare beets because you are afraid you may forever sport red-stained fingers? Don’t be scared. Preparing beets at home really is worth it. Not only will you improve your sodium intake by skipping the canned versions, you may find yourself addicted to the delightful savory root and incorporate more of them into roasted vegetables, serving them as a meal, or simply bringing it in as a side salad. What's the trick? Salt. Simply sprinkle sea salt on your ...
My sisters and brother will remember this and laugh. Nothing was quote-normal-unquote when it came to mom's dishes. For starts, we never had sugar or anything remotely sweet. She substituted ingredients whether it made sense or not and sometimes it even worked. She loved to entertain and each week we had what seemed like (to a little kid) hundreds of people coming over for dinner after church. Sometimes we would have overnight guests and then dinner expanded into ...
Content sponsored by #deNigris1889 Have you ever travelled to Italy? I have to admit that the boot-shaped country never was on any of my bucket travel lists other than the vague notion of “go somewhere internationally” that might have covered it. In 2009, ten of our family members packed up our suitcases and boarded a flight from Northwest Arkansas, to Memphis, to Amsterdam, to Rome. For twelve days we created a temporary home in a small working-class Mediterranean seaside town called ...
Hi there. You didn’t think I would ignore the big game this weekend, did you? Today’s five foodie finds are all about souper bowls and super bowls. 1. Shuguh bowl. For all the non-Brooklynites, that would be pronounced as “sugar.” The white sweet stuff. 2. Large Japanese porcelain lidded bowl. Crafted from clay from the famed Japanese porcelain region in Nagasaki, these gorgeous bowls are pretty enough to leave on your countertop and the ash wooden lid serves ...
"Is this mic on? Check 1, Check 2." Hi friends, Guess what? I did a podcast with NYC’s BreakThruRadio’s DJ Jess! DJ Jess has a segment called Biology of the Blog that delves into her favorite blog discoveries and nwafoodie just happens to be one! The fifty-minute podcast covers a wide range of music genres and peppers in the interview over two segments. If you are a music buff, please listen to the entire piece and explore the site. If you are interested in just the interview ...
Almost exactly one year ago Dennis’s entire family, including us, made a monumental shift in our eating patterns. We started watching our sodium intake. Like a hawk. My father-in-law started keeping his sodium levels down and naturally we all jumped in to do the same. Dennis and I thought we were already on top of things as we only used sea salt for cooking and the percentage of processed foods in our pantry keeps dwindling down as we continue the quest to eat well. Boy, ...
