You know it’s been a good day when you come home and your hair still smells like melted butter. Yes, I think even the Queen of Butter herself, Paula Deen, would’ve been a little jealous of me today because every single dish I cooked in my “Fast French” cooking class [...]

Confession time: So, I have a new lunch ritual… Well, when I’m not in the middle of 1,353 deadlines anyway, which was basically the case all this week. But when my work day isn’t quite so insane, I make my salad, pour myself a glass of green tea sweetened a [...]

When you’re a kid growing up in small-town Wisconsin, you can’t help dreaming about all the glamorous locales that exist outside of America’s Dairyland. It’s like Sandra Bullock’s character said so eloquently in While You Were Sleeping: “It’s amazing how exotic Wisconsin…isn’t.” But before you assume that I’m dedicating an [...]

It's no secret I was definitely rooting for Aarti to win the Next Food Network Star title. And now that she has, I have to say I absolutely, positively love her cooking show, Aarti’s Party. It’s so much fun that 30 minutes whizzes by like nobody’s business. Now while I [...]

Now I realize that I’m hardly the first person to profess my love for Trader Joe’s. Truth be told, my friends have told me about the cheap wine and tasty vittles for a while now. But for whatever reason, I thought it was simply Whole Foods’ trendier cousin. A cool [...]

It’s only four days after Thanksgiving, and aside from a few slices of the Oprah-recommended smoked turkey we ordered all the way from East Texas (Will was a huge, huge fan, while I preferred the decidedly less smoky roasted turkey breast I made instead), all the leftovers are long gone. [...]

I had a truly frightening dream the other night. Instead of writing, I’d decided to quit the biz and enroll in culinary school. And as I was getting ready for my first day of my new career, I was sweating bullets because I was convinced I’d forgotten how to use [...]

Well, I’ve finally redeemed my Valentine’s Day present from Will…a gift certificate for a class from the Cooks of Crocus Hill in St. Paul. And no, he wasn’t dropping a hint about my cooking prowess, I promise. :) See, I’ve always talked about wanting to take a class, and Will, [...]

On Saturday night, I had a dinner party that Ina Garten (a.k.a. The Barefoot Contessa) definitely wouldn’t have approved of. In fact, I violated several of her back to basics rules of entertaining…and no, that doesn’t mean that I skipped the good vanilla. But these were doozies in her book [...]

Part of the fun of cooking is experimenting with different spices and flavors—a pinch of this, a teaspoon of that and seeing what works and what doesn’t. And when you’re trying to be a little more health-conscious about eating (not always an easy thing for food lovers like Will and [...]