It’s been well documented on my blog that I’m a big fan of Thanksgiving. So it probably comes as no surprise that I like to make a second Turkey Day-inspired meal just in case some of my favorite dishes were left off the menu on the big day. So I [...]
Today is one of my favorite days of the year, let’s just call it Thanksgiving Eve, shall we? While Christmas probably has Thanksgiving beat in the decorations department, Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, hands down. You get the great comfort food and wonderful family time without all the [...]
Ever go to a place so stunning, so positively otherworldly, that you can’t even believe you’re there? That’s precisely how I felt 11 years ago when Will and I drove up the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco for our honeymoon. And during last year’s anniversary celebration [...]
It was the perfect Fall day, crisp but not cold, an abundance of red and yellow leaves everywhere, and the boy and me were brunchin’ in Amsterdam. And unlike many of the other European cities we visited over the course of a month, we totally skipped the restaurant research for [...]
October is a month of big celebrations in the Banister house. On October 8, we celebrated our 11th anniversary with a killer French meal in Dallas (I’ll be writing about that restaurant soon, I promise), and five days later, October 13, it’s Will’s birthday, so cue the chocolate ganache. While [...]
While it would’ve been much cooler to say that I first heard about Harry’s Bar because of Ernest Hemingway’s unabashed devotion (I’d discover later, of course, that it was one of his favorite places to write), I learned about the birthplace of the peach bellini (woah, just typing that makes [...]
On the list of places I’ve always romanticized, Venice was always right up there with Paris. So after checking the beloved City of Light off my must-travel list and even returning for round two, Venice quickly moved up to my top spot. Now considering that I’ve read numerous accounts from [...]
Call me crazy, but I always assumed the famed Oktoberfest festivities were in, well, October. But after our time in Germany last fall, I learned that wasn’t the case. The bulk of the big ol’ party that Munich is probably best known for actually takes place in September. So we [...]
The trees are changing later and later in DFW (case in point: they were still in their full summer splendor when we arrived back from Europe at the end of October last year), so I was thrilled to pieces, naturally, to experience the full array of Fall colors in Germany [...]
If we’re honest, last year’s European adventure could’ve easily been dubbed the “No Carb Left Behind” tour. After all, who has time for salad when there’s dumplings, Schnitzel, those cute little parsley potatoes and warm apple strudel with a veritable mountain of whipped cream? Those were a few of our [...]
