I was introduced to this dish by my friend Kristen years ago when she created it as a special for the deli.  She made it with peanut butter, served it room temperature and it was a favorite of the clientele. Dan Dan Mien, or ‘peddler’s noodles’, of course has many renditions and adaptations from its origins in the Sichuan region of China.  Sometimes it’s noodles in a hot spicy broth like a soup and sometimes it’s made with a tahini or peanut butter paste and

      Finally a little northern hemisphere winter magic…   Happy New Year to you all!        Favorites December 2015 . . Blooming wonder  . . Danish restaurant magic Höst . . Watercolor for your digital world . . Butternut Gnocchi sounds good for a winter’s eve . . Cozy winter getaway and another . . City of Nights . . For your New Years Resolution oh and maybe add a 52 Week Challenge . . More mobile Adorableness . . Soundage

  Is this not one of the most beautiful of Maple Syrup images?  Crystalline and glittery, maybe I could wear it as a necklace.  Bees would like me.  This crystal sat around for many weeks waiting for me to take a photo and it remained patiently sparkly.     As fall is quickly slipping away here is another beautiful image (above) from our friend David Cavagnaro of Pepperfield Project.  By now their squash would all be safely tucked away in cool storage areas

.   My friend Annette made this up years ago, served it at a potluck, and little did she know that I would promptly take her idea and run with it for the next fifteen years.  It’s simple, delicious, and the perfect combination of sweet-spicy-tangy-creamy and has been successful in converting people and to discard their “I hate yams” stance. It could be an interesting twist on aThanksgiving favorite—still a little sweet from the natural sugars of the sweet potatoes, both creamy and

  It’s been an incredible fall, brilliant leaves and sunny days hovering right around 70 degrees.  Last week gave us the first drizzly gray day we’ve had in weeks and it was almost a relief—I can handle only so many perfectly cheery sunny days before I crave some good gloomy gray to balance it out.  We need that low-pressure system once in a while to bring us down to earth. The end of October brings many things (including gray drizzly days), but to me it means a totally geeked-out

  There is something about the slow cook that sweetens everyone.  Roasted garlic becomes less sharp, deeper, sweeter, and in some ways more powerful of a flavor in dishes— a more enduring flavor.   Roasting is also a way you can preserve garlic to extend its life.  Maybe you grew some or scored an awesome deal on a pile of garlic from your Farmer’s Market but you’re not sure if it will keep long enough to use it—roasting and freezing is a great way

    If I called this ice cream you wouldn’t even want to try it because you don’t have an ice cream maker or churn.  It’s too thick to be called a smoothie.  Whatever the name might be, here it is and it’s tasty as-is or could be amended with your favorite additions like cocoa powder, cardamom, clove, ginger, lemon, other frozen fruit, or the countless smoothie options.     My friend gave me a bunch of organic bananas that were on the

    How do you learn about a culture?  Travel to the region and wander around indulging in street food. Street-vendor food in Mexico like the carne asada tacos in Hermosillo and churros in Tepic shaped some of my greatest food memories ever and have influenced my food choices my whole life.  Street food is always what people miss about their home countries, and after tasting these lemongrass wonders I would almost make the monumental effort to overcome my fear of flying over an ocean to experience real

    “A single, ordinary person still can make a difference – and single, ordinary people are doing precisely that every day.”                                                                                                                    — Chris

  Creamy, silky AND healthy, the Alligator pear, aquacate, manzana del invierno, palta, or avocado, is one of those incredible fruits we should be getting down on our knees and giving thanks for every day. A Superstar. A Helper.   Limes and avocados are two of the main reasons I simply cannot eat only locally here in the Upper Midwest of the United States.  They are two of my favorite entities on this planet and no one I know except my friend David Cavagnaro, a