Today marks exactly one month before my half marathon! After much equivocation and holding out for a better option, my sister deigned to invite me to St. Louis to run the Rock’n’Roll half with her and prove to her doubting friends that I’m real. For whatever reason, I jumped at the chance to visit her in
Category: Dinner
Summer cucumber salad
Oh hey! I didn’t really mean to take such a long break, and I have all sorts of really good excuses to justify my radio silence. For instance: I moved! Only about a mile, but into this tiny little studio that is perfect in every way except for its utter lack of kitchen counters and
Roasted beet salad with candied pistachios
With three kids in the family, you have to put up with a certain amount of compromising on the all-important battlefield of dinnertime vegetables. Green beans (my favorite, but not in my sister’s good graces) switched off with spinach (I had a traumatic spinach experience in elementary school…), and everyone more or less ate it.
Pepperoni & pineapple pizza braid
Between the allure of Goodwill’s mismatched bowls and several enticing lunch options, I love spending weekend afternoons just wandering around my neighborhood. I often stop in at When Pigs Fly Bakery for a pretzel or a giant cookie, and one of my recent trips introduced me to a magical bread with pineapple pieces in a
Squash, apple, and goat cheese salad
The vernal equinox last Friday heralded the beginning of spring, but I think Boston missed that memo. It started snowing Friday night and kept it up just through the run I dragged my sister on Saturday morning, marking at least the third time that it’s resumed snowing when I thought for sure that winter had
Roasted acorn squash with spicy beans
I remember moving to Chicago at the end of college, facing the terrifying reality of adult life outside school for the first time. I didn’t have a lot of friends, especially after a rough breakup, and I underwent foot surgery that left me hobbling along the uneven ice of February sidewalks on crutches. It was
Potato-leek soup with pear and bacon
While in Vermont last weekend, my darling little sister sent me an article about how much snow has fallen on Boston, because I hadn’t really noticed the newly-formed mountains all over the city. The article concluded with the incredibly depressing statistic that the last three weeks have given Boston more snow than Chicago has ever
Pork tenderloin with ginger pan sauce
The first time I made this pork, I had an outline of a recipe and a vague idea of the flavor profile I wanted. A friend and I drank wine and traded stories as I threw in a little of this and a glug of that. The improvised sauce turned out so delicious that we
Braised chicken drumsticks with smoked paprika and green olives
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me Twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords-a-leaping, nine ladies dancing, eight maids-a-milking, seven swans-a-swimming, six geese-a-laying Five golden rings Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree We made it! Today is the twelfth day