• Sushi for Birthday
    Blog,  Dessert,  Food,  Gluten Free

    Living My Life Through Food

    Somedays I daydream about living my life through food. And somedays my daydreams come true. This February was like an entire month of celebrating through amazing cuisine for me! If every February was like this, my winter-is-dragging-on blues would never exist! First, I received two gorgeous, completely different, but inspiring cookbooks from awesome people who know my obsession with food. The Forest Feast, Simple Vegetarian Recipes from My Cabin in the Woods, by Erin Gleason is colorful, gorgeous, and full of simple and delicious looking recipes. (I wrote about it in my last post, Making Memories with Cookbooks.) Near & Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel, by Heidi Swanson is almost…

  • Cucumber Spritzer
    Blog,  Cocktails,  Food,  Writing

    Making Memories with Cookbooks

    I adore cookbooks. I covet them like I do my favorite novels that have been with me over the years, timelining my experiences, my life. Although I love the ease with which I can get recipes off the internet these days, I still will always love cookbooks, the weight of them, how they feel in my hand, the amazing photography and recipes to inspire me. The stories inside them as well as the memories we make with them. 

  • Winter Rudibeckia
    Blog,  Writing

    Writing Out of the January Blues

    I was in my mid twenties when I first became really interested in photography. I was teaching elementary school in East L.A. and taking classes at Cal State to get my teaching credential. In order to fill a few extra credits I signed up for a black and white photography class with my old Pentax K1000.  We had different assignments each week based on themes like, light, lines, shadows, contrast, composition, so many of the themes playing off of each other. After all, you can’t have shadows without light. I loved the way light and absence of light played such a huge roll in black and white photos. I loved…

  • Holiday Sparkle
    Blog,  Motherhood

    A Little Bit of Holiday Sparkle

    Sparkle is one of the things I love about this season, the glitter on ornaments, white tree lights shining through the night, silvery white snowflakes falling on our world. The sparkle helps me beat back the dark, the literal dark of our shortened days here in the Puget Sound region, and the dark that comes on the heels of tragic new stories or simply with missing people I love. 

  • Chicken Liver Paté
    Appetizer,  Blog,  Food,  Gluten Free

    Chicken Liver Paté

    What’s your favorite part of the Thanksgiving table? I loved the holidays as a child. Holidays meant crazy Denver blizzards, Peter Paul and Mary on the record player, delicious flavors & bites of goodness and the parties we had with lovely friends.  My parents had a knack for throwing great parties. My mom always set a beautiful table, sparkly candles were put out with the decorations, my dad readied the old bar with cocktail ingredients and bottles of wine, and I loved getting dressed up right before people arrived. There was such anticipation and joy over putting together a celebratory meal to share with people. Even the cuisine at those parties,…