You learn a lot about a person when you move in with them. Even though Stephen and I had been friends for years before we started dated and started living together, there is no way that I could have anticipated just how much he loves to light candles. It seems like a silly thing to mention, but when you spend $30 on a scented candle and I come home to find that he has two or three of these puppies burning at the same time, it becomes an issue. I think he loves the I love to buy scented candles, more...

Years ago, when our kids were small, a few close friends and I  started  a monthly dinner  party for “just us” grownups. As hectic as the holiday  season always was, we decided to replace gifting each other with a monthly therapy session complete with a 5-course dinner we share in preparing. I’ve taken my turn with the main meal but most often I’m asked to create the appetizer and dessert courses. Everyone gets, gives, bakes, and buys cookies, cakes, pies, etc. during the holidays so in an attempt to change the standard “coffee and cookie” holiday dessert at our holiday “therapy...

Last Thursday, I spent the day at Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market, the old train depot turned food hall that’s been a destination for eating and shopping since 1893. I was in my hometown to teach a cooking class, and excited to be back at my old stomping grounds. As a kid, I would go shopping there on Saturdays with my mom, as did she with her mom when she was a young girl. These days, whenever I am back to visit, the Reading Terminal is one of my favorite destinations. Many cities have food halls, but this one...

There is a restaurant two blocks down the street from my Brooklyn first-floor apartment called the Empire Wok. I would say that it’s the quintessential Brooklyn Chinese takeout restaurant, except that all the other ones are too. They all have the same pictures (Pepper Steak under a Ford-era coating of fat-steam varnish) and the same black plastic menu displays. And the same menus. And the same food. Which is invariably bad. And yet, this bleak,depressing canteen, with its quasi-rancid deep-fryer stench, is making me quiver with longing. I’m not taking any solid food today or tomorrow; so I’m taking my...

Today’s show was an inspiration, not just because I am partial to Rachael, but because this story hit the spot. Today, as I was scrambling around making what has become my trademark cranberry sauce, and Stephen was making cauliflower “mashed potatoes” (this year we are trying to be more health conscious), I had a chance to tune in and watch. Wilmington, Ohio I know how hard everyone at Rachael Ray worked to put this show together. Honestly, I can’t even imaging the logistics of getting everyone TO Wilmington, let alone securing the spaces, coordinating the interviews, gutting and renovating an...

I recently went for a stroll through the local farmer’s market with my friend Joy, who, in addition to being a cook at one of New York’s hottest restaurants-a place called Cortone- is as excited as I am about finding interesting wild foraged foods. We came across a vendor who was selling all kinds of foraged foods like milk thistle and wild mushrooms, and I spied an egg carton whose cups were filled with dusty, dark brown orbs. He told us they were black walnuts and that they cost five dollars for a dozen. We bought one dozen each. Joy...

This past weekend I celebrated finishing my cookbook, Lucid Food: Cooking For An Eco-Conscious Life (no, this is not a shameless plug for the book, it’s really part of the story). Writing a book can be an all-encompassing endeavor that takes up most of your focus and energy, and never seems to end. Consequently, I did not see nearly enough of many people I care about over the past year. So, with the book sent off to the printer, it was the perfect time to celebrate and invite missed friends to one low-maintenance event, in the small...

I guess I must have though I was a real wiseguy, aping Rachael and trying to have a Burger Bash of my own. And for a while, it looked pretty good. 18 of the greatest burger men and women in the world were assembled in Summit New Jersey, this past weekend, all vying to be crowned King of Burgers. And what a sight they were to see! Arrayed geometrically out across the parking lot of the Grand Summit Hotel were all the great burgers from the gastronomic capital of the world: the Black Label burger from Minetta Tavern, redolent of...

You can check out what Evette is doing by joining her facebook page or following her on twitter! Its not often that you see a cute, clapboard house complete with crisp, white-painted trim in New York city, but a few weeks ago on the corner of 26th Street and 8th Avenue, I saw just that! I was invited to check out a new promotion, the “Be HomeGoods Happy,” Tour 2009 –  a house on wheels all decked out in HomeGoods goodies. And goodies they are, especially when you check out the price tags, which they cleverly left on, just so you can...