Freaking Felix, dudes. So, I missed April, pretty much just that whole glorious strawberry and asparagus filled month - there was a back thing and then a sick thing - but now I feel fantastic. I walked the kids to school this morning and planted corn and beans in the backyard. (The man at t...

Who doesn't love noodles soup? In the Vietnamese repertoire, beef pho noodle soup is a classic. In fact, it's practically the national dish of Vietnam. Below is my family's recipe for the quintessential Vietnamese food -- pho noodle soup. You may have had bowls of pho in Vietnamese noodle shop...

If you're looking for a delicious and easy-to-prepare appetizer you will love these deep fried parmesan cheese puffs. These bite-size parmesan cheeese puffs are light and airy with a hint of saltiness from the cheese and a crispy outer shell. They are perfect on their own or can be paired with...

Way back when I used to write o.c.i. fad recipes which is an acronym for "Oh Crap I forgot about dinner!" It's like that with kids sometimes, you get out & about or playing and all of a sudden it's almost six and you need to make dinner fast. I'm much better now and often have dinner on the...

Patagonia’s Our Common Waters campaign isn’t only about demolishing dams. The impact of a dam on rivers and ecosystems lingers well past their expiration date, so removing them is still necessary in many cases. But that’s the work of remedying our past mistakes. The future requires that we f...

This week while I was in Toronto I had an idea which I think I like. I get to live quite an adventurous life and I really don't document it well enough. One of my favorite party games is "I Have Never". There are various iterations and versions of this game but the basics are that you have to th...

I’m in Austria. I’m in Austria drinking a Franziskaner Weissbier and people-watching on the deck of an Apres-Ski. Vanilla-iced mountains and mounds are dazzling fortress, shielding me from the real world; my real world, anyway. I’m writing a fairytale and I’m aware that sometimes it is ...

Cincinnati may not be the most glamorous destination for a New Year's Eve celebration, but that is where John and I chose to celebrate it this year. The reason for our choice was fairly innocuous: that's where John lived for 4 years back in mid-60's when he went to law school at night and w...

So far in my food blogging life I've attended two freebies - one luncheon and one dinner - from both of which I never reviewed in the end (quite apologetic to the PRs who kindly invited me). The reason why is because I am just a simple man with a simple mind. To me there will always be the dev...

I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't do so well on my culinary resolutions. I finished 13.5 out of 25. And, let's be honest, they were the easy ones. Like making whoopi pies with Modern Domestic, buying more pieces for my Russel Wright collection, or eating at Estadio. What's a girl to do...

It would be completely fair to call me puritanical when it comes to vanilla. Vanilla "essence" makes me a little bit angry. It's like maple "flavoured" syrup. Why, I beg you, why? If you're like me and you flinch at the $10 for the bottle of the real stuff of either one, we could try plant...

Years ago we made caramelized yogurt in the pressure cooker. A recent email asked us about the possibility of caramelized cream. With a bit more knowledge under our belt we added 0.5% baking soda to our cream to expedite the browning process and filled our mason jar with the cream mixture. We lo...

This weekend, I was a very bad blogger. I did not take a single photograph of the pile of blankets I made my baby sister who's about to have her first baby (times two!), nor the sweet reversible newborn baby girl pants (thank you once again, Quick Change Trousers), nor the buckets (thanks to...