I am not the neatest person. I am not however the messiest– comfortably lived-in is what I like to call it. There are always stacks of paper lying about my desk. Pens don’t always have caps. The coffee table can actually be used to hold a cup of coffee, and sometimes hours will pass before I pick the empty cup up and bring it to the sink. I guess this bleeds over into how I am in the kitchen as well. My counters are always wiped clean, my utensils pristine, but as I write this, the coffee pot has not yet been cleaned-out, still holding the latest murky brew, and there is a package of graham crackers sitting out from last night’s snack. So be it.
I always keep a small pad of paper with me. Tucked into my bag it becomes an [...]

Do you remember eating grapefruit as the starter at a savory dinner party? I do. It must have been an early 80’s things to do. Or maybe it was a late 70’s thing, and my mom was simply holding on to a remnant of the past (sorry, mom!). Anyhow, I loved it. It seemed so grown-up and glamorous, to eat a grapefruit instead of a standard old green salad in preparation for the rest of the meal.
To my young palate eating a piece of fruit for the first course was equivalent to the excitement that I felt when a small dish of sorbet was set down in front of me as a palate cleanser during my first dinner at French restaurant. Ice cream! In the middle of my meal? I could get used to this whole fine dining thing! Well, it’s [...]