From the category archives:

Home Economics

The Chef, The Designer, The Kitchen and The Party

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Ordinarily, I write here about cooking, trips and/or the antics of our Gourmet Club. But for this post, I was urged by Club Member Laura to write about the KITCHEN of our most recent dinner party, and the DESIGNER, who also happens to be in our Club. Laura is right, it doesn’t always have to [...]

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Our Tour of Wilton and My Autumn Leaves Pie Crust

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This pie crust is brought to you by Nancy Siler and Gretchen Homan, who are helping me perfect my autumn leaves. They’re the go-to home economists for baking pretty things – they work at Wilton.

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5 Kitchen Remodel Ideas I’d Recommend; 2 I’d Skip

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Julia Child had a kooky kitchen feature: a pegboard with the outline of her pots to precisely hang them in their proper places. Functionality, love it. Three times in my married life, we’ve torn a kitchen to the studs. One was our commercial building (renovated a 50-year-old Hungarian restaurant into offices and professional test kitchen). [...]

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Best Paint Advice I Can Give

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You’re looking at my well-traveled paint palette. When we remodeled this house a decade ago, we had the daunting task of deciding colors for every room. Sounded fun… wasn’t. One step forward and three steps back until I landed on the right approach, thanks to a kind stranger.

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Patti’s Mojo Spice Blend

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Last autumn, we took a cooking class at the South Bay School of Cooking. The instructor’s spinach-stuffed chicken breast recipe featured a secret ingredient: her Mojo – a homemade blend of kosher salt, lemon zest and dried Italian herbs. Which made me think of the jumble of herbs in our spice pantry. Once home, I [...]

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Last Minute Food Substitutions

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This week is Thanksgiving. And what should arrive on my doorstep from uber-culinary publicist Lisa Ekus? The gigantic Food Substitutions Bible by David Joachim. It conjured memories of past Thanksgivings with friends and family – for which I am very grateful. And memories of “Oh S**T, there are no coffee filters!!” And “Wasn’t vanilla extract [...]

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Funky But Really Useful Household Thingy

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About the De Odor Works “thingy” — it starts with Home Economics 1-0-1: rubbing smelly hands (wet) on a stainless steel sink eradicates odors like fish, garlic, mildewy-rubber-glove-insides. Yup, true. But it only works with stainless steel. If you have teenagers or other smelly critters in your household, unfortunately you cannot rub their entire bodies inside your [...]

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How to Fold A Napkin Into An Ostrich

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Tablescaping at the Lianshulu Lodge in Namibia was fanciful. Each meal was decorated with fresh-cut branches, intriguing little pods, local craft art such as warthogs and dragonflies. One evening, the napkins were folded as ostriches, and later we were taught the technique. I was EXCITED for the demo, don’t laugh.

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Guest Post by Carly Wray of Snooth ~ 7 Wine Emergencies & How to Fix Them in a Pinch

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Carly Wray from Snooth here. Patti asked me to provide you with my top tips to help get you through a summertime of wine emergencies! You can’t tell by looking at it that your favorite wine is about to betray you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You fought your way through rush hour crowds to [...]

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Shirley Corriher’s Touch of Grace Biscuits

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If you’re a baking fan, you’re a Shirley Corriher fan. Renowned food scientist, writer and frequent guest on Alton Brown’s Good Eats show, Shirley delivers all that’s good about Southern cooking. And, of course, she is the author of my favorite food science book, CookWise. Shirley is a what we home economists love – a [...]

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How to Make a Logo Apron

This custom logo apron is a one-of-a-kind. Cuz I made only one. Being a longtime marketer, sometimes there are opportunities when I really want to “wear” my blog identification. It only takes three things:

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Easy Almond Pecan Toffee

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This recipe made me wonder if our candy thermometer was broken. It seemed stuck at 240 degrees, all the while the syrup was getting pretty tan. After some brain wracking, I remembered how to do the “ol’ fashioned water drop.” You know that one, right? Cook your candy base over medium-high heat. As it reaches [...]

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How to Cook Thai Rice Sticks

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This cooking class at Let’s Get Cookin’ in Westlake Village was great fun — presented by prolific cookbook author, Hugh Carpenter, we foodies were immersed in Thai recipes, always good eats. Hugh’s dry sense of humor kept us in stitches while we soaked up cooking techniques that are quite useful. Cooking rice sticks, for starters.

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Kitchen Conversions

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My desk has a copy of Denise Vivaldo’s brand new The Entertaining Encyclopedia. Denise is a presenter at the upcoming Camp Blogaway Bootcamp for Food & Recipe Bloggers. A powerhouse in the food styling world, this book is a whopper of a resource. And sometimes it is the “small” nuggets of info that are why [...]

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How To Tell if An Egg Is Raw or Hard Cooked

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You’re at the cabin. Everyone else is out hiking. You want an omelet. There’s a bowl of eggs in the fridge. DANG IT, nobody labeled them! Are they raw? Hard cooked? You are smart, you studied physics in school… remember “inertia?” Take the egg and spin it on a smooth surface. Touch it for a [...]

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Canned Pumpkin Shortage? Simple Steps to Make Fresh Pumpkin Puree

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This is a refresh of my original post. I wrote last year about the national shortage of canned pumpkin. Well, this year there’s plenty, and there are also plenty of these small sugar pumpkins, too. Now I have canned pumpkin in the pantry once again, LOTS of it. About a month ago, I noticed my [...]

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Meet Friend, The Lord Wedgwood of Barlaston

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You’ll never meet a nicer Lord. Seriously, Lord Wedgwood of Barlaston is cool. He’s a former client. Quick bio: direct descendent of Josiah Wedgwood, the 18th century “father of pottery,” served in the House of Lords for more than 20 years – until 1999 – as the fourth Lord Wedgwood of Barlaston. He travels to every [...]

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The History of Aprons

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Friend, Caroline is an enigma. On the surface: a classic beauty, self-assured self-employed food pro who travels the country for clients and around the globe for fun. Yet, she’s kind of a country girl. Choosing Home Ec as a profession fit her to a T. One of her favorite pastimes is Knit ‘n Bitch potlucks [...]

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How to Calculate a Recipe’s “Nutrition Per Serving”

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It isn’t difficult, and I find it much easier to do it by hand – on paper — than plug data into software or use an online calculator. That is because so many ingredients seem to have peccadilloes and sometimes the software doesn’t accept your data OR doesn’t have that specific item in its database [...]

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What Is This Teensy Serving Utensil?

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Polishing silverware from Aunt Dede’s estate in preparation for a dinner party here, I discovered this tiny 4-inch long slotted serving piece. Of course, I could google around and discover it’s truth but it would be more fun to ask out there… what is it? OK, I hear the collective SHE DOES WHAT??? Yes, I [...]

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