At long last, Spring has sprung in Minnesota. Last week I was curled up on the couch watching snow accumulate by the foot outside my window. We were in the midst of a blizzard the likes of which apparently hasn’t hit Minneapolis in a decade. Attempting to drive was like surfing giant undulating waves of…
My Kitchen Notebook
The Little Things, February 22
Sam and I leave for our desert vacation TOMORROW! Along with the standard pre-travel checklist, you can usually find “library!!” scrawled at the top of my to-do list. I take a tapas-inspired approach to libraries, checking out huge, unwieldy stacks of books, curling up in bed, and delving into the first chapter of each before…
The Little Things, February 15
Introducing the little things, a weekly post on my latest inspirations and daydreams. I’ll share what’s on my mind (usually food), what I’m reading, listening to, or laughing about, my favorite kitchen tools, and anything else that makes me smile. My hope is just to send you a little weekly joy. Because it really is…
The Little Sister Gift Guide: 5 Essentials for Every Kitchen
When it comes to the kitchen, I rely most on the simplest tools. I’ve rounded up a list of my five favorites. Ranging from $10 to decadent splurge, I depend on each with faithful adoration. I hope there’s something here that inspires you! I read somewhere that this lemon press is Ottolenghi’s favorite gadget. Simple and affordable,…
Kitchen Conversations: Baking with Bridget
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that as a child I was a very picky eater. I wanted nothing to do with the seven fishes stew my mom served on Christmas Eve. I wouldn’t touch the sugar-dusted Linzer tortes my sister baked, taking some unfathomable offense to the texture of…
Poolside Plátanos & Cocktails on the Beach
I could walk to the beach with my eyes closed. Out the door of my grandma’s peach-colored house onto the hot pavement of a quiet dead-end street, past the house with the ferocious dogs and year-round Christmas decorations, left at the creaking iron gate, over the canal on a wooden bridge, through the tunneling sea grapes, and…
Little Sister Goes South: Everything I Ate in Greenville, SC
On my last evening in Greenville, SC, my best friend Eliza took me to a free candlelight yoga class. “How nice,” I thought, “we’ll do some sun salutations and some light spinal twists, all by the soft light of little twinkling flames.” Not exactly. In fact, I have never sweat so much in my entire…
Dark Chocolate, Sea Salt, and Brand New Beginnings
At 11 PM on a Saturday night, I sat down to start on work for one of my four jobs. A few hours later, as I dipped a granola bar into a mug of watery hot chocolate from a package that’s been sitting in a kitchen drawer for over a year, I felt it might be time to…
A Guido’s Thanksgiving Feast
When I daydream about coming home for the holidays, I think of wearing slippers and cozy sweaters for days at a time, sitting in front of the fire until my eyelids begin to droop, and waking up to views of the rolling blue Berkshire hills. Mostly, however, I think of cooking. I think of dreaming…
Eating My Words with Jane and April
I’ve always been guilty of going straight to the pictures. Whenever a book had that section of thick glossy pages in the center, I’d spend about a minute and a half trying to resist, and then flip hastily to the middle and pore over every picture and caption in detail. Then I’d go back to…
