From the category archives:

Home Economics

Funky But Really Useful Household Thingy

Home Economics 1-0-1: rubbing smelly hands on your stainless steel sink eradicates odors like fish, garlic, mildewy-rubber-glove-insides. Yup, true. But it only works with stainless steel. So, if you don’t have that, you may not be in-the-know. This post is an unpaid product endorsement for a thingy I got for free.

Read Full Story

How to Fold A Napkin Into An Ostrich

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.

Read Full Story

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

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 [...]

Read Full Story

Shirley Corriher’s Touch of Grace Biscuits

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 [...]

Read Full Story

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:

Read Full Story

Easy Almond Pecan Toffee

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 [...]

Read Full Story

How to Cook Thai Rice Sticks

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.

Read Full Story

Kitchen Conversions

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 [...]

Read Full Story

How To Tell if An Egg Is Raw or Hard Cooked

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 [...]

Read Full Story

Canned Pumpkin Shortage? Simple Steps to Make Fresh Pumpkin Puree

About a month ago, I noticed my local store had no small cans of pumpkin. A week later, still none. Then Larry showed me a newspaper article about the super scary national canned pumpkin shortage. Another week later, friend Marlene circulated an email about it but by then, I had three “sugar pumpkins” to make [...]

Read Full Story

Meet Friend, The Lord Wedgwood of Barlaston

You’ll never meet a nicer Lord. Seriously, Lord Wedgwood of Barlaston is quite 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 [...]

Read Full Story

The History of Aprons

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 [...]

Read Full Story

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

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 [...]

Read Full Story

What Is This Teensy Serving Utensil?

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 [...]

Read Full Story