Category: (it's all about the) food

Cooking class at Stonewall Kitchen: A Sensational Supper with Jane St Pierre

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, education, family, local fun, teens

My daughter and I went to a cooking class at Stonewall Kitchen Cooking School.  We’ve been there before, and it’s always a treat. This was the first class taught by Jane St Pierre that we’ve been to, but hopefully not the last. She is a wonderful teacher, warm and funny, but most importantly, she knows what she’s talking about. In addition to treating us to her delicious original recipes, she shares lots of cooking tips and tricks, and also welcomes them from the audience.

How do I know? Because I offered one! I got a little jam for my trouble.

The only challenging aspect of attending classes here is the seating. The seats are high aluminum (I think) chairs that are hard to pull up to the tables and very cold on bare legs. Leave the flip-flops at home; it’s work to keep them on when sitting on the tall chair.  You can request handicapped seating, which will get you regular size chairs that are lower to the floor, hence easier to get in and out of  (but still that cold aluminum).  Also, the front row fills up early. We got there almost an hour ahead of time and the front row was already taken.

Coffee, tea, and water were free. Wine and beer were available by the glass, but cost extra.

Our class cost $60, and was three courses, and the recipes for all were given to us in a handout.

I loved everything she made.

Bottom line: Go, at least once. They are so much fun!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Get caught reading!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, author, books, Brave books, the beach, writing

May is ‘Get caught reading!’ month. Why not get caught reading my book?
One Brave Thing! At your local bookseller and at Amazon.com, where you can preview it before you buy it.

OBT Sanibel by C Robinson

This is a photo of my friend Charlotte who ‘got caught reading’ One Brave Thing at the beach in Florida! YAY! Where will you get caught reading One Brave Thing??

Post your photos in the comments below!

 

 

My slip is showing

by Karen, posted in books, no fear, quest for the best, Someone's gotta say it, writing

I have recently become aware of some minor formatting issues with my book, which I will be addressing in the next printing.

😀

Wasn’t that mature of me? An amazingly calm reaction, since my inner critic and inner perfectionist are usually hard at work full-time, preventing me from letting anyone see my fiction writing, never mind noticing that, hello? It’s not perfect. Indeed, they worked quite successfully in tandem to prevent me from publishing One Brave Thing… for years.

After I first published it, I had this nagging feeling of…I don’t know. Something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Until one day, suddenly, I could: I felt like my slip was showing!  When you put your art of any kind out into the world, you are taking a risk. You are revealing parts of yourself that you have never before revealed. People will tell you what they think of your efforts. Some will not convey this information in a nice way at all. But some will do it in such an amazingly caring, wonderful, loving, joyful way that it will make you want to weep.

The latter more than outweighs the former.

I have found these words (I am paraphrasing Jack Canfield here):

  Some people will say yes, and others will say no. So what.

Maybe there are times when you are feeling imperfect, too.  Here’s a motivational audio by David McGraw based on Jack Canfield’s Success Principles that I love. Maybe you will, too!


So thank you to my friend, Kathy, who did One Brave Thing and let me know that I had a tiny bit of spinach in my teeth. And for now, my first book shall remain perfect in its imperfection.

Like me. 🙂

 

Poetic license, people! Heard of it?

by Karen, posted in author, books, quest for the best, The write words at the write time, writing

writers thesaurusI have been reading and reviewing books for years.

Years.

I haven’t loved all of them, but with only one (to my knowledge) notable exception*, I was not ever unkind to the author in my review. If I liked or loved a book, I said so. If I didn’t, then I moved on. Just because it wasn’t for me didn’t mean it was okay to ruin it for anybody else.

So, I was not prepared to deal with the negative feedback I got about one word that I chose to use in my book, One Brave Thing: ‘fleusy’. The first objection was to my repeating the word. Repetition is a tool that I use in my writing. I like to have my characters repeat words for emphasis. I am fairly sure that I am not the first writer in history to use this technique.

The second objection was to how I chose to spell ‘fleusy’. She wanted me to spell it ‘floozy’. I thought about spelling it that way, but I didn’t like how much it reminded me of ‘boozy’, so I decided to spell it differently. ‘Fleusy’ reminded me of ‘fleur‘ and I liked that better.

Hello? I am a wordsmith. If a word doesn’t work for me in my writing, then I change it up or make up a new word, if necessary, to get the feel that I want.

So, shut up. I can.

*The notable exception: Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper. I wasn’t critical of her actual writing. I just hated how she chose to end the book. Just an artistic difference of opinion.

Boston Flower Show

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, local fun, restaurants

My husband and I usually go to the Portland Flower Show every year, but as you many know, there best flower show exhibitwasn’t one this year. We hadn’t been to the Boston Flower Show in, um, decades, but we both had fond memories of all of it except the getting there and getting home part. We thought about going this year and were lucky enough to find a bus to drive us almost all the way there and back.

Yay! Alpine Leisure Tours. Based on our experience, I would recommend them highly.

As for the flower show, it was fine. It was smaller than we remembered. It seemed like half of the show was made up of vendors, maybe more than half, and there were fewer actual exhibits than I expected.  I only noticed one lilac! And it was half dead!

My favorite exhibit wasn’t a flower at all. It was the fountain and stone carving in the photo above. I kept going back to look at it. So beautiful.

Anyway, we had a great time being there and loved the bus ride. Our tour guide, Claire, was the best-est tour guide ever. She printed out a word search for us to do on the ride! It was hard! But I finished it! (Full disclosure: my husband thought it was easy).

The bonus was the surprise stop at Kelly’s Roast Beef on the way home. Heaven. I may have liked that part more than the flower show. What can I say? It’s all about the food.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

More Grace

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food

So, I was thinking about my affirmation, “Thank you, God. It’s my 11th day (on this day) of my first 100 days of Grace,” and it was drawing to a close. I was reviewing my 11th graceday, looking for some evidence of Grace. Not much popped into my mind. And then, my daughter said, “Hey mom, someone at school is collecting for his mission trip,” and she handed me this crumpled up piece of paper with a small, black and white photo of three figures on a boat that said this:

MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN GUATEMALA! The April 2016 Guatemala Mission Team is working to make better health possible in 5 villages will hold medical clinics.

and had this website on it:

http://gracemissionalcommunity.org/, and to go to www.guatemalagrace.org for more information.

The pastor of that church is a Family Nurse Practitioner.

I am an RN…

Hello. Grace? I see you. I hear you.

Connection

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, friends, Holidays, Karen's Kitchen, my one word

I was just watching Valerie Bertinelli’s new cooking show on the Food Network. It turns out that Karen’s Kitchen isn’t so different from Valeries’s Kitchen. She lasagnawas making a buffet for a Christmas gathering and it consisted of lasagna, salad, and a favorite Italian cookie from childhood.

I realized as I watched that one of my own favorite Italian dinners is the same. The lasagna recipe I remember from my own family dinners of yore, salad, and a different cookie, but still a favorite Italian cookie that I grew up with (I am not surprised that both of our dessert recipes include chocolate… 🙂 ).

Of course there are some differences, the biggest of which is this: Valerie has both of her parents with her. Mine have long since departed.

At the end of the show, I was surprised to hear them talking about choosing a word for next year! Their words were much different from mine (Hello, ‘Butter’? ‘Bacon’? How did I not think of using a food as my one word? Ha!).

Lesson: we really are all connected, aren’t we? We can be connected to people that we have never met by our food and our (Italian) heritage, as in this case, but there are many other ways that we can find connection in our everyday lives.

 

 

Bonus from tidying up food

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, italian, Karen's Kitchen, Pantry Project, recipes

img_7029So, I did save $150 that first week by not buying groceries, and then $75 the next week.  I have rediscovered coupons!

Also, I invented a recipe using some of the stuff I had in the house when I was saving $150 by not eating out or food shopping this week: Naan Pizza.

Ingredients:

  •  One piece of Naan Bread for each person eating; this recipe makes individual pizzas
  • Tomato sauce of any kind (or green pesto or red pesto or whatever you find in your pantry or freezer)
  • Mozzarella (block, shredded, slices)-I ALWAYS have mozzarella in some form in my fridge or freezer. You could also use provolone or whatever cheese you have
  • Grated parmesan: sprinkle on top of sauce and under mozzarella. If you don’t have it, leave it out. We ALWAYS have it. Hey, we’re Italian. What can I say?

Apart from that, you can snip some basil from the garden over it if you have it, or use dried oregano and or dried basil. You can top it further with anything you have on hand that you like on a pizza (bacon, any nearing-the-end-of-its-life cold cuts or veggies).

Throw it in to the oven at 400-425 degrees for 8-12 minutes, depending on how burned (or not!) you like you pizza.

If you want to eat it like a Neapolitan, just fold it in half or into quarters and mangia!

Buon Appetito!

 

Tidying up food, continued

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, Karen's Kitchen, Pantry Project, shopping

pantrySome of the side benefits that have come from my Tidying Up Food project:

  1. I have straightened up my pantry.
  2. I know exactly what I have for food in my house right now.
  3. I did not go buy another bottle of (whatever, insert food item here) because I knew I had one already on the top shelf of the panty, in the way back part that I need to stand on a chair to see.
  4. I no longer have any expired food in my house.
  5. I will have less food to organize when I get to that part in the The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo book!

Uh oh; I just thought of something…what if there IS no food section in the ‘Tidying up’ book?

DOH!

Tidying up food

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, family, Karen's Kitchen, Pantry Project, Travel

tidying upI have only been taking baby steps with my The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo book since I did the clothing category. I am motivated, but I haven’t had an uninterrupted block of time to tackle the next category (books) yet.
Well, that’s my excuse, anyway.

Since then, I have been scrutinizing other areas of my home through my new ‘tidy eye’, and here’s what I’ve discovered.

I am not a tidy person.

Anyway, this week I have given myself a challenge that is tied to my goals to

  1. Be more tidy and
  2. Spend less money.

I am not going to spend any money on meals or drinks when I am out this week. I am going to eat and feed the fam using the food I already have in the pantry, fridge, and freezer.

I have a lot.

My husband and I figure that conservatively, we are spending $150 a week on food. At the end of this week of not spending any money on food, we will deposit that $150 in the bank (in our new “Go to Italy in 2016” fund, perhaps? 🙂 )

Anyone else want to do this with me? Just for one week. I started October 2nd and will end the week October 9th. You can start today, or tomorrow.

If you decide to try it, I would LOVE to hear how it goes for you, so please consider commenting below.

As Liz Gilbert (speaking of ‘eat’-ing, and oh! of Italy!) would say, “Onward!”