Ezie and Emil

Friday night is Spaghetti night at our house. Our favorite used to be just a simple fresh tomato sauce with garlic and basil. Easy peasy! Then a few years back Sis#2 brought back a bag of mixed herbs and spices from her trip to Italy.  I normally don't use premixed seasoning/herb packets so this bag of Spaghettata Floreale sat in the fridge for a good while.  One winter night when I had no fresh tomatoes in the house that were worthy of pasta, I used google translate to figur

Emil has been telling me for the longest time that she wants us to include Zuppa Toscana on the menu. She learned how to make it from Papa Joe.  I don't really like the idea of offering sausage, well I should say I didn't till now. My worry has always been that who knows how many million things go in a casing of a sausage? MSG? bread crumbs? What other things you can't remember how to spell? I mentioned in one of my emails a few weeks ago that I am excited about having our me

Most Thursday mornings I try to visit my favorite farmers to find out what they will be offering soon and place orders for the following week's menu. It is so fun to look at all the gorgeous produce and get the first dibs on them. One thing that is hard though, is controlling myself and not ordering a bushel of everything. I make a list of what I have seen and ordered, then work on the menu. The first thing I noticed there this week was the baseball size beets that have been

Sis #2 is a medical doctor who practices traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture. Sometime in February before the craziness hit, she gave me a package of Sea Buckthorn Berries and all she said was, "This is really good for you!". Well the berries are dried, very tart, and I wasn't sure what I could use them in. I tried chewing on them but that was not too pleasant. With a little research and experiment I started making a tonic with it. Now I am obsessed with making d