Cooking Articles

Halloween, Chompers and the Caramel Apple

Caramel apples: We’ve all heard of ‘em, chewed on ‘em, even enjoyed ‘em at fairs and farm shows (And hopefully not broken a tooth or lost a filling on ‘em). But chocolate turtle caramel apples?...

Ahoy! Pirate Stew Ahead!

When I laid my eyes on the title of this slow cooker recipe, it was a shoe-in for Halloween. Few of us ever see a real pirate except for those little buggers that traipse down our street in hopes of filling...

Pomegranates: More Than a Marketing Campaign

Unless you have been living under a rock or have super powers that make you impervious to the ploys of marketing campaigns, you are probably aware that pomegranates are going to help you to live forever....

Be an Adult: Celebrate Halloween

My family didn’t really celebrate Halloween when I was a kid. My mom didn’t like the “evil” association the holiday had with witches, ghosts, and so on. So, instead, we went to our church’s “fall...

There's No Taste Like Home

What does homesickness taste like? Everyone is going to have a different answer. For me it is pretty simple. Homesickness tastes like the crispy edged carnitas from The Tacqueria in Hemet. It tastes...

A Scary Treat That Your Kids Will Eat

I have to admit that writing holiday themed articles is not exactly my forte. In particular, writing about Halloween is especially frightening to me, and not for the reason you might think. Halloween...

Candy Overload

Do you have loads of candy around the house? It’s not even Halloween and the candy is already piling up around here. With an unknown amount of trick-or-treaters coming and various other Halloween activities...

Put Yourself in a Pizza Fix

We all eat pizza. It's good at all hours of the day (people who reach for the cold slice in the morning, you know who you are!), all days of the week. Olives and mushrooms, pepperoni and sausage, cheese...

Bubbling Witches' Brew: Scientifically Scary

Before kids, Halloween used to almost be a bother. It seemed like just another chore, to make sure that I had a basket of treats to hand out to the little ghosts and goblins. Fast forward thirteen...

Enchiladas That Are Dead On

While we're trying on costumes and dressing up our little pumpkins and witches for a night of trick or treating, just south of the border our neighbors are getting ready for a different kind of spooky...

Jack O' Lantern Waste Not

Last October I attended one of the most elegant lunches I have ever had. �My dear friend Paula invited me and my family to her parents' house in upstate New York. �Overlooking an oasis of rolling hills...

My Giant Pumpkin

We had a great growing season this year--with the exception of my much anticipated giant pumpkins. Every year, my pumpkin patch has produced enough bounty to keep the neighborhood children happily supplied...

This Halloween, The Great Pumpkin Is For Real

Like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear, every year people just like me eagerly await Halloween if only for the promise of everything pumpkin. Sure carving Jack O’Lanterns is great, but what...

Trick or Treat?

This week I did something that I think would have surprised myself ten or twenty years ago. I bought a sack of individually wrapped Halloween pretzels to give out along with our Halloween candy! They...

There is a pumpkin shortage this year in the Northeast. Hurricane Irene may not have caused quite the havoc to metropolitan areas that was originally predicted, but much of the rich farmlands of New Jersey,...

I love theme parties. Call me a cheeseball, but hey, aren't parties supposed to be fun? At my shindigs, you let your hair down and a while later stick a lampshade on your head. And no one else minds because...