Cast Iron Apple Cobbler

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Larry was enjoying an Ozzie & Harriet Sunday.  First, a basketball afternoon game with buddy, Bruce. Returned home to a piping hot Cast Iron Apple Cobbler. “Wow, it smells great in here.” I appreciated the Ozzie reaction, thank you.  Too early for dinner, they then watched another game on TV. Are they living the life, [...]

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How Do You Make Clam Chowder? Gil Shares

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Close to three weeks touring India with co-travelers meant a lot of talk about food.  At one point, we started chatting “signature recipes.”  People tend to want to tell you about their best recipes, and I certainly want to have them.  That is how I scored Gil’s Clam Chowder recipe.

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Eating in India

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Larry and I weren’t Indian food aficionados before we visited India. Early in our marriage, we lived next door to a delightful Indian family; Northridge, CA. One evening, they invited us to dinner and proceeded to blow our brains out with the hottest food I’d ever encountered. I recall wincing and sweating, followed by spice-burping [...]

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Our India Adventure from A to Z

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Overwhelmed and overstimulated. There’s no way to effectively present our travel to India. Too much to process.  Too many photos to show. Too many questions to answer.  My solution – highlights of our India Adventure from A to Z. Elsewhere you can read about classic India experiences, but here are mine…

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Champinones Rellenos ~ Guest Post by Julieta of Lindaraxa’s Garden

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FROM JULIETA:  I am delighted that Patti has asked me to share this easy tapas recipe for Stuffed Mushrooms, or Champinones Rellenos, with her readers.  My name is Julieta and I blog about my cooking and recipes at Lindaraxa’s Garden.

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Guest Post ~ Turkey Enchiladas by Nancy of A Communal Table

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FROM NANCY of A Communal Table: Recently Patti contacted me about doing a guest post for her blog and I was thrilled! Well, it’s January and although Spring is typically the season for cleaning in my house it always takes place in January. Maybe it’s the influx of gifts received during the holidays but once [...]

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Soup is Skinny Food ~ Recipe Roundup

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Feeling FAT? New year, new plans to get the muffin top under control. And seriously, few foods can do it like soup. This is my recipe Roundup of Homemade Soups on this blog. I make a lot of soups. Once upon a time, I worked for the Campbell Soup company as a foodservice sales rep; [...]

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Guest Post ~ BBQ Country Ribs In The Slow Cooker by Dorothy of Shockingly Delicious

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NOTE FROM PATTI: You know how much I love my crockpot. So when I was chatting with friend Dorothy about a guest blog post, I was THRILLED to discover she’s mastered BBQ pork ribs in the ol’ slow cooker. What a great recipe for New Year’s – try them this way!

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I Want To Talk You Into Volunteering

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Looking for a New Year’s Resolution to help others besides yourself? Volunteer. I came late to community volunteering. My pro bono work was always career-focused. Committee work for professional associations. PR support. Program chair. Treasurer. President. Only in the past two years have I discovered more satisfying types of volunteering. This past Thanksgiving, Larry joined [...]

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Guest Post ~ Italian Cookies, a specialty of Created by Diane

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NOTE FROM PATTI: Readers, I met Diane at Camp Blogaway and am always tickled to see her picture-perfect Italian Cookies at events. Looks like any shape is possible with this go-to recipe. FROM DIANE: Patti is so wonderful to let me share with you my Italian Cookie Recipe today. I blog at Created by Diane. [...]

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Guest Post ~ White Chocolate Orange Cranberry Bark by Jennifer at Savor The Thyme

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FROM JENNIFER at SAVOR THE THYME: When Patti asked me to guest post, I started thinking about what would be of interest to many of you and what you may be feeling just a few days before Christmas: wrapping gifts, planning menus, planning for visitors and thinking about gifts you have not yet purchased. Now, [...]

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Little Lucy’s Excellent Cake Pops

Lovely Lucy belongs to Yoga Jen, our way-cool yoga instructor at Camp GetAway for Mothers & Others.  They were excited to show me their Cake Pops project. These gals are big fans of “Bakerella” and decided for Lucy’s classmates, they would make some of her Snowman Cake Pops – here is Bakerella’s recipe for these guys! 

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How to Roast a Goose & Why is John Crying?

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Don’t feel sorry for John, that’s not his empty wine glass. John was on the front line, dicing onions as a member of Team Soup at our Traditional Old English Christmas Dinner. And he certainly wasn’t crying the remainder of this Gourmet Club cooking and eating extravaganza, I can attest to that. This was the [...]

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Chocolate Kahlua Truffles

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This is my adaptation of a candy recipe in Cooking Light, truffles made with bourbon. If a sweet recipe calls for bourbon, I already think it will be better with Kahlua. Chocolate Kahlua Truffles were my final product. I wanted a “tiny” holiday gift to make for the peeps who matter to me at UCLA Medical [...]

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Mom’s Scalloped Potatoes & Her Thing About Butter

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Let’s see if I paid attention to how my mom, Gloria, made her scalloped potatoes. She was always peeling potatoes; there were seven of us. And she had no recipe box if I remember, just a mental arsenal of foods we would consume without debate. There were no extra items for any fussy eater. Either [...]

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Iced Cranberry Pecan Drop Cookies

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Forgive me, Nestle. You often get my money for chocolate chips to make Toll House cookies, but this time I strayed. There was a packet of dried sweet cranberries in my pantry from a food conference goodie bag.  The cranberry package said “made for salads” — a dumb use, in my opinion. Go for the [...]

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Crockpot Beef, Mushroom, Barley & Rosemary Soup

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It isn’t often that I cook with beef. I’m CHEAP, remember? But Omaha Steaks was having a sale and that’s my (frugal) chance to fill the freezer with steaks and burgers. Somehow I added Tri Tips to that order, apparently part of a package. Hmmm, really cold weather and chunks of beef at my culinary [...]

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Dining In The Dark

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  You have not seen a restaurant review on this blog. I’m easy: I like to eat in restaurants, never send food back, always clean my plate. This review is about an experience, not the menu; our dinner at the restaurant Opaque wasn’t anything I expected.  Their marketing is European-ish, but the actual dining is… [...]

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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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The Original Classic Kahlua Pecan Pie

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Heavenly Kahlua Pecan Pie and I go way back. In the late ‘80s, my little PR agency represented Kahlua as a client. Before spirits were OK to advertise on TV, and before stupid corporate changes decimated the brand (ouch, I’m still bitter), Kahlua was on TOP. The brand made piles of money and spent it [...]

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What Meryl Streep Served Steve Martin in “It’s Complicated” ~ Croque Monsieur

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Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin. All eating, all the time. The movie “It’s Complicated” is now Tivo-able. It’s the kind of chick flick I love because, besides hilarious middle-age angst, there’s a lot of great looking real food.  Did you ask, “what’s that cheesy thing Meryl served Steve” (which then made Alec swoon)?  They [...]

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Machines Made Dinner ~ Sausage, Red Beans & Rice

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This day, Larry was focusing all his attention on a case (he’s a legal expert witness), I was volunteering at UCLA Hospital (Info Desk Lady). Crockpot + rice cooker = dinner. Now, this is not a New Orleans Sausage, Red Beans and Rice, it’s a Patti version. Nor is it “cooking fresh” — it’s what [...]

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I Cannot Wait For Leftovers ~ My Two Favorite Post-Thanksgiving Recipes

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Here you go, I am pulling up my two all-time favorite uses for leftover Thanksgiving turkey – Noodle Bowl for Two and Thai Pasta.  Both have been published here before but I want to make a point of showing them to you again because it’s officially Turkey Season. Both obviously have Asian flavors. And they [...]

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Wine Cork Trivets ~ A Larry Craft

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Larry will be quick to inform you that the collection of wine corks in the tall glass cylinder in our family room is not ALL CORKS (final photo below). There are bricks inside to keep it from toppling. Nevertheless, there were PLENTY of corks available for his craft project, sparked by a sighting at a [...]

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Grilled Mushroom and Ham Crostini

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If I may give some life advice… whenever you find yourself in need of a mood lift, throw a potluck dinner party. People like to contribute, they really do. Invite an interesting mix of friends, hand out food assignments (appetizer, side dish, salad, vegetable, dessert) – the host does the entrée. Wine tends to arrive [...]

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Scenes from the Aetna Healthy Food Fight Competition

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This is the Rancho Cucamonga regional cookoff for the Aetna Healthy Food Fight Recipe Contest.  A more in-depth post is {probably} coming; the contest is still running and no word on which recipe (it ain’t mine, I can tell you that) will progress from this regional cookoff to the finals mid-November. I cooked my uber-healthy [...]

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Botswana Bush Tea and Shortbread

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This post is long overdue. When we were on a safari last spring, besides photographing animals, I certainly shot a lot of food photos. If you are a foodie, and a traveler, and adventurer, HURRY and take a trip like this.  Warning, African safaris are as uncomfortable as they are comfortable.  “UN” because you freeze. [...]

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My Four TOP Recipes Of All Times

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When you write a cooking blog like Worth The Whisk, the mechanics of it can result in earlier recipes being tucked waaaay away in places quite difficult to find without digging.  You might find it interesting to read that these are my four top recipes of all times (on this blog). Not surprising, all desserts.

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Troy Garza’s Chicken Breast/White Potato Chili Verde

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High school was fun for me (that’s rare, right?). I had enough friends to keep me on the verge of trouble; for the most part, though, we skied, worked teenaged jobs, chased boys. Ours was a class of around 800, a big enough crowd to enable a mediocre student like me to hide from smart, [...]

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Baked Olives in Cheese Appetizer

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Another Wisconsin inspiration. Dinner party at Barbara and David’s, the Wisc. connection is Barbara. Her mom was from Kewaunee, Wisc. My parents are both from Kewaunee, Wisc. If this doesn’t sound odd, we all live in Los Angeles, including the folks, who only reconnected when we kids made the hometown discovery. Kewaunee is an teensy [...]

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My Dad’s Beer Basted Bratwurst for Octoberfest

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Maybe 15 years or so ago, Larry and I helped my folks with one of their wild parties.  On the menu: Beer Basted Bratwurst.  My parents have a “gang;” their decades-long connection is St. John Fisher grammar school, all the gang’s assorted kids started there. We lived on The Peninsula (they still do), a horsey, [...]

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Scallops, Bok Choy and Mushrooms Over Barley for UCLA’s Dr. S

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Friday afternoons, I’m an Info Desk Volunteer at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Not only do I work alongside Volunteer Marty who is interesting, smart and has good stories, ours is the “witching hour” — the pace transitions from slow week to wild weekend. Everybody needs something, including lots of docs. When Dr. Preethi [...]

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Road Trip: Camp GetAway for Mothers & Others

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Women were dancing on the basketball court at Camp GetAway, a weekend retreat I produce up in our local mountains of Southern California. This was my tenth. Or maybe eleventh?  We had exactly 100 women this time around. Big camp. And even with the occasional thunderstorm rolling through, good times rolled even more.

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Guest Recipe ~ Plum Frangipane Tart by Gisele of Pain Perdu

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My readers here know by now that I had a big event last Saturday when I produced the Day Camp of Camp Blogaway. One of our sponsors, Viking Range surprised us with door prizes, which lead me to think… hmmmm, bloggers LOVE to cook and they love to compete. Thus, a “Bonus Competition” was born.  [...]

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LAWeekly Features Patti & Camp Blogaway

PHOTO CREDIT: Celia Soudry, LAWeekly So… countdown mode for the next Camp Blogaway.  THANKS, LAWeekly reporter Celia Soudry for your in-depth feature! Here’s that LAWeekly article. My dad had one question when he saw it, “How do you eat soup with chopsticks?” Very cute, and I explained (spoon is in my left hand). But that [...]

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Menus for Meatless Mondays

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These will be two busy weeks. Saturday, I conduct Camp Blogaway Day Camp. The following weekend, another camp takes place, Camp GetAway for Mothers & Others.  WHEW, but I am still thinking about YOU, my friendly readers. I wanted to post something useful, yet let myself off the hook for cooking, photographing, recipe writing. Aha! [...]

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Roasted Sea Bass with Ratatouille

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Ratatouille. This is something I’ve avoided all my life due to the dreaded ingredient – eggplant! I never ate that veggie in my youth. Larry’s mom cooked hers to smithereens, so it is yuck to him, too. We never order anything eggplant in restaurants. Only thing aubergine in our lives is Larry’s extensive wardrobe of [...]

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Pumpkin Cream Soup

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My week was bookended by funerals. Tuesday, longtime friend Vicki of Pink-Link laid her Grandma to rest, 100 years old. It was a sweet sendoff. Then Saturday, we said goodbye to Paul Conrad, my parents’ four-decade pal and fellow party animal. In my youth, when their “gang” shot pool at our house, Conrad’s booming “GET [...]

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Grilled Badda Bing Flatbread Pizzas

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OK, I admit that my little pizza is not a pretty shape. And… a teensy bit burned on the edge, too. I decided not to Photoshop my mistake, but rather be honest and point it out. My oven rack was too close to the heat in the broiler, that was the source of the problem.  [...]

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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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Citrusy Olive Oil Cake with Limoncello Drizzle

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  This cake was such a surprise! It’s not a fluffy commercial texture, nor is it a brick – which was my first thought when I heard we’d be making an Olive Oil Cake with Limoncello Drizzle at our “Date Night Romantic Mediterranean” cooking class with Chef Diane Brown. If you haven’t noticed, we’re a [...]

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Cucumber, Cream Cheese and Lox ~ a Foolproof Appetizer

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If you’re one of those people who claims to not cook, or thinks they cannot cook, this recipe is for you. Don’t be “one of those” who stop at Whole Foods for something from the deli to bring to a potluck. Or a frozen Trader Joes fan. To a party?? Be a hero; bring homemade, [...]

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Look: My Glazed Lemon Pound Cake Recipe Is Now An Illustration

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 This blogger is an artist with a delightful idea – draw high-quality illustrations of food bloggers’ recipes and post the art on her blog. Then, allow visitors to click to the source recipe. This is the work of the talented Lisa Orgler at The Lunchbox Project. Her artwork and products are available here on Etsy.  [...]

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Bottlenotes.com Wine Tasting ~ Guest Post by Larry

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  From Patti:  Hi readers, this past week I was invited as a blogger to attend a wine tasting event. To be honest, while I love wine, I rely on Larry to make decisions about the stuff. I’m sort of the Jack in “Sideways” who proclaims at the sip of practically any wine, “tastes pretty [...]

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Larry’s Best Caramel Corn

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Larry is a good cook, and an enthusiastic one. Sometimes we practically arm wrestle “who gets to make what” when we feed other people. But he usually wants to be the dessert guy, so he selected caramel corn for our picnic in the Hollywood Forever cemetery with Cathi and Barry. He was all over this [...]

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Road Trip: Taste of San Diego Walking Tour

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What you see here is what awaits you on a walking food tour of downtown San Diego. SD was my college town. Back then, the only reason to go downtown was… uh, well, there was no reason. The closest I may have gotten was my stint working in a Mexican restaurant in Old Towne, but [...]

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Citrus French Toast with Marmalade Drizzle

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  Lately, I’ve been eating challah on Fridays around sundown. My Jewish readers might think, “Such a good girl, going to Shabbat.” Catholic-raised me must tell the truth: I volunteer at the UCLA Ronald Reagan Hospital until 5 PM on Fridays. We have a meditation room (not to be confused with a medication room) and [...]

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Mushroom, Basil and Goat Cheese Lasagna Roll-Ups

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There’s this thing out there called Wordless Wednesday. I think food bloggers tire of writing posts, but have some nice food photos to share, so they use Wednesday to get caught up. I like the idea. So, consider this an Almost Wordless Wednesday post. I created this Mushroom, Basil and Goat Cheese Lasagna Roll-Ups for [...]

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Road Trip: Picnic and a Movie at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery

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Confession: I don’t always share my fav things on this blog. Publicity can easily wreck a great experience. Case in point: the LA Times decided the week before this adventure to run a feature on something Larry and I’ve been trying to hit for three years: Cinespia movies at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Santa [...]

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Triple Citrus Cupcakes with Lime Glaze

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  Culinary throw-down: prepare a dessert elegant enough to complement friends’ upscale picnic contributions, portable, and cannot compete in flavor with the other two desserts: Larry’s Famous Brownies As Seen In Bon Appétit, plus a batch of caramel corn. The venue? A cemetery, but not to visit dearly departed. We were there to picnic and [...]

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