Author of the Hope Trilogy and Food & Books: a blog for readers that really cooks. Coming Soon! Eat My Balls: a Cookbook
Recipes, tips, tricks, reviews, and more.
I've made these brownies for years. My husband loves them. My whole family loves them. They are so popular that people at my work have come to expect them anytime we have a food day. (Super Bowl, Fourth of July, Christmas Eve, etc.) People who used to work with me years ago will seek me out and pay me to make my brownies for them. Today, I'm going to teach you my secrets for these brownies that never have leftovers..
Read MoreThat's not what it's called, but what else should I call it? Kufta? Khufta? Kofta? I don't even know how to spell it in English, but I guess no one else does, either, because I've seen all of these spellings while trying to figure out how to make it. Anyway...my husband has wanted me to make this for four years. For four freaking years, he's grumbled that he wanted me to make him his favorite dish that his mother used to make. Are you fucking kidding me? How daunting is that? To try to replicate her recipe without having it? Without having her show me how to make it I was terrified of it being a disaster. Yeah, he loves my steaks and ginger chicken and fish, but how could I ever meet his expectations for his favorite food?
I put it off for as long as I could, begging for patience, explaining my fear of wasting food. His patience was not infinite. He could not wait for us to be able to afford to either visit his parents or bring them here. Last year, he found a video on YouTube that he wanted me to try to use to make it. Eleven months later, I finally did.
Read MoreBestill your racing hearts, folks. I'm really going to do it. Today, I'm going to teach you my secret recipe that I've perfected over the years. It is a nice balance between throwing together pre-made stuff and making it full-on from scratch. People who know me go crazy over this dip, especially my husband. But, it is really cheesy and I don't want his heart to explode, so I only mix up a batch a few times a year. It's better than anything you've ever gotten at a restaurant, grocery store, or deli. Fair warning, though--it's going to take a while, so settle in, strap on, and get ready for one hell of a ride.
Read MoreThis week, I'm making a bit of a departure from my "normal" blogs to talk about what happened today--on this fantastic, wondrous day of April 20th, 2018. Today, Eat the Elephant, A Perfect Circle's first new studio album in 14 years, has hit the shelves.
If you've ever met me, you know how much I love music.
Read MoreSince my overnight oats recipe only makes breakfast for six days, I need something to make on the seventh day, right? I've been making my breakfast bake for years. Before I got married, I used to make it with ham. Now, I make it with turkey or chicken. The cheese remains the same, though. It will always be a creamy, delicious, smoked gruyere.
Read MoreSo many people skip breakfast. Too many, in fact. We've all heard it a million times--breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But mornings are so hard! Especially if you're like me and you are a night owl. I'm not at all a morning person. I am grumpy, surly, and I'm always running late because it is so hard for me to wake up to an alarm. I barely have time to make coffee, let alone breakfast! That's where my overnight oats come into play.
Read MoreEvery year since I was a debut author, I go to NYC for ThrillerFest. This summer will be my third time. It will also be my first time going entirely alone. Since my husband and I are trying really hard to save money so we can go to Palestine and visit his parents, I've made the difficult choice to go alone. I decided to start planning my trip in the cheapest way possible and figuring out where I'd be eating while on my trip. Last year, my niece and I found this awesome pizza place that had two slices and a can of soda for $6. I couldn't remember the name of it, though.
Enter--Google Maps.
We all want to eat healthier, right? But fried foods are just so damned delicious! No one wants to give them up entirely. But what can we do? Technology to the rescue! I'm a night owl, so I'm frequently subjected to infomercials. While under the fog of decision fatigue, hour-long commercials ply their wares to unsuspecting insomniacs across the country. "Look at how fantastic and perfect and easy it all is! Check out this versatility! Recipes! Payment plans! Money back guarantee!"
Damn it. They got me.
Read MoreA person can't live on red meat alone. There must be balance in all things. When we don't find balance, we fall. When it comes to food, we can fall into a rut, cycles of bad health, bad habits, etc etc. So, for a bit of variety, we're going to talk about chicken this week. Tender, juicy, organic, free-range, Butcher Box chicken.
Read MoreRemember Kid 'N Play? Did you know Kid is a comedian now? I saw him on that Byron Allen show, Comics Unleashed. He told this joke about how his girlfriend calls herself steak and lobster. She said that when you go to the grocery store, you see Hamburger Helper, Tuna Helper, Chicken Helper, but you don't see any Steak Helper or Lobster Helper. Because steak and lobster "don't need no help!" I'm making sirloin steaks this week. Juicy, succulent, beautifully marbled, Butcher Box steaks!
Read MoreIt’s time for week two of my Butcher Box adventures!
Who doesn’t love a big, juicy steak? I don’t know…Vegans, I guess. And don’t get me wrong, veggie people—I love a good salad as much as you do. But, I get anemic and need some red meat from time to time. So, yeah. Not ever gonna be a vegan. You keep being you, though. Because for us meat-loving people, there are things like Butcher Box. After much anticipation and trouble, I have finally gotten a box of beef and chicken that I can cook!
Read MoreWhat food blog would be complete without meat? I figured if I’m going to do this cooking blog thing right, I need to get some meat. Big, delicious, juicy, mouth-watering meat. This adventure in culinary delights started back in November when I saw a big Cyber Monday sale for Butcher Box. I hopped on board and bought a huge box of steaks and chicken. It’s organic, grass-fed, humanely raised, and all that good stuff. I know happy meat tastes better, so I was eager as hell to try this meat.
Read MoreIn my meal delivery adventures, I decided to give Home Chef a shot as my second one. Again, I got it at a discounted rate, but then, don’t all of them seem to offer half off for the first week? I got Home Chef deliveries for two weeks this time instead of three. In some ways, it was better than Hello Fresh, but in other ways, it was worse.
Read MoreSalt is salt. It doesn’t matter what you use to cook, as long as you use it sparingly, right? No, no, no. Wrong. If you have the right salt, the right pepper, and the right oil, you don’t really need much else to season your foods. And let me tell you folks, I found the right salt! Falksalt!
Read MoreHello Fresh is a meal delivery service that sends you a box full of ingredients with recipes and you cook fresh, healthy meals that are supposed to take less than an hour. They have a handful of recipes you can choose from each week, or you can let them surprise you and they just send the most popular meals.
Read MoreI know I've said this before, but I may have found a focus for my blog. It's been so obvious. It's always been right there in front of me. Food. I'm super into food. I cook several times a week. I bake for the holidays. And I'm nothing if not meticulous when it comes to preparing food. So, from here on out, that will be the primary focus of my blog. Food and all that it encompasses. I might write about cooking, ingredients, gardening, restaurants, meal delivery services, or even mail-order specialty food products.
Read MoreIt's almost Thanksgiving so I figured I should, at least, post a blog with some cooking tips. I mean, I did graduate from culinary school before I started this whole author thing. Might as well spread the love, right? Need help with your turkey? Gravy? Can't ever seem to get smooth mashed potatoes? Deviled eggs a bit bland? Blasse rolls? Read on!
Read MoreBut no, actually, I'm not really back. I will continue my hiatus in my blogs at least until the end of the year because I must have my priorities. You all know I still work an hourly paycheck-and-insurance job; I'm up to over fifty hours a week there. I also have a household to maintain, a few novels to write, and drastic changes to my lifestyle that have had to be made.
I found out I'm sick. Not just in the head, but inside my body, too. I don't really know everything yet, so I'm not comfortable revealing what little I do know so far. What is my doctor's biggest worry may turn out to be no big deal and what is my smallest concern could turn out to be my biggest problem. So, I'm not going to count my eggs before my chickens have collapsed. Or...well...you know what I mean.
I've gotten a few emails. Yes, my website was really down for over a week. No, it wasn't just your computer being weird. My domain name expired with GoDaddy and I had trouble getting it reinstated because I no longer have access to the email I used to register with them. Once I was able to get them to let me pay, I couldn't get it relinked with Squarespace. I wound up having no choice but to transfer my domain name to Squarespace, which cost me more time and money. But--obviously--my site is back up now.
About the book reviews that I've promised... It will happen. Eventually. I have this terrible habit of wanting to do far more than I have time for and ending up in over my head. One book a week was more than I could handle. I'm gonna have to back it off to one review a month. And again, it will be next year before I even attempt to restart my blog. My computer time has been consumed by research and writing lately. But I'd rather make this book perfect than rush it and crank out a higher volume of content. So, please, have some patience with me.
Halloween is in less than a week. I don't even have a costume yet. Everyone at work expects me to dress up because my hair is blue and purple. Obviously, I should love Halloween, right? Yep. It has always been my favorite holiday, and not just for the candy. But I haven't dressed up for Halloween since my grandmother's funeral was held on Halloween two years ago. That was actually the first blog I ever posted on this website. I'm going to try, though. I had my year of mourning. It should be enough, though it's not. I still miss them both often. But I'll try.
Do you have your Halloween costume yet? What are you going as for Halloween this year?
Due to technical difficulties--as well as my lack of knowledge and time to fix them--I will be taking a pause in my blogs. I can't get my Dropbox to work right. It uploads from my phone to the cloud, but it's not showing anything on my computer, even though I've reinstalled Dropbox five times. It sucks.
So, I'm giving up. I can't spend all of my time writing blogs and figuring out tech issues. I've got fucking books to write! I'd been so busy with editing and promoting my last book, I still haven't finished writing the third one. But I really must stop doing so much internet tomfoolery and get to actually writing "Our Eternal Hope." It should be in the editing queue with my publisher already if I want it out by September of 2018, but I'm not done with it yet. I've written most of the fourth book, and I've got dozens of other stories in the works--ranging from short stories to stand-alone novels to a series.
Oh, yes, my friends. A series is coming into play. It'll be several years before I release anything for it, but she has begun to take shape. Her personality is forming, and so are ideas for her adventures. And this won't be a mere accidental trilogy like Hope's books because the story was just too fucking long to fit into a single novel. No, no. This will be intentional. Plotted. Outlined. Researched. Amateur-hour is fucking done. I've been watching, listening, and learning. CraftFest and ThrillerFest these last two years have been invaluable. I've learned an immense amount about my craft there and it will be utilized. I'm so excited.
The Sunchi story will be posted eventually. I'm working on it when I feel driven to, but otherwise, I'm plodding away at "Our Eternal Hope." I'm averaging about 2K words a day since I don't get to write every day. At this rate, I figure I'll have it done in a month. Then a couple of weeks to read it another ten times to polish it. Then I'll hand it off to my publisher and wait for my turn.
Once my book is turned in, I'll probably get back to regular blog posts and book reviews. I was going to write a post about the eclipse since I live in the path of totality. But, technical issues with my Dropbox have stopped me, which is what prompted this off-the-cuff blog as well as my decision to stop blogging for a while. If I'm writing ten to fifteen thousand words a week, I need them to be prose, not gushing and babbling.
And remember--if you've read my books and you like them, please leave me a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and/or Barnes & Noble.
Coming home from New York City started out easy enough. We got on the ferry at Ellis Island, rode back to Battery Park, got on the subway, and rode back to Grand Central. We walked past the shops that line the train station and went back into the Hyatt. We got our bags and made our way to the meeting spot for the shuttle. It was only a short block and a half away. We had no troubles getting our shuttle tickets and it arrived soon after we got there.
We got to the airport with an hour and a half to spare before our flight left. While checking our bags, we found out that our flight had been delayed by about 30 minutes. Okay. No big deal. Gives us plenty of time to get through security and grab something to eat. There was no line at security. It was well staffed and we were through pretty quick. We meandered around on our aching legs, got some pretzel bites, and found seats at our gate.
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