Challenges

I love a new challenge…and cooking provides plenty of them. Learning to carefully pipe buttercream frosting onto a layer cake, roasting a chicken until it’s perfectly tender and moist, neatly slicing a pile of basil into a fine julienne. There’s always something new to learn, and that’s one of the many reasons I’m drawn to this culinary adventure.

But I have to admit, one of my biggest challenges in the kitchen, is also one of the more basic ones – cooking dinner on weeknights.

I absolutely love cooking – and I spend a good part of my weekends and vacation time immersed in a sea of recipes.  But weeknights are a different story.  After a long day working, writing fiction in the early hours of the morning and then teaching for a full day, there are many nights when I just want to grab a quick bite – a bowl of bran cereal, a piece of peanut butter toast, a pre-packaged salad – and relax.

While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, lately I’ve found myself dissatisfied with this weeknight routine, and wanting to get back to what I grew up with – home-cooked dinners.

I have a busy weekend coming up, with absolutely no time to cook, so this week seemed like the perfect opportunity to take on this new challenge. I dove into my cookbook collection looking for a book that would fit the occasion. One with delicious and healthy dinner recipes that could be made on a busy weeknight.

And I found the perfect one.

This week’s Cookbook of the Week is Weeknight Wonders by Ellie Krieger.  …

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Love 

I have to admit it, I fell a little bit in love this week.

With a taste, a place, a vision – Theo Chocolate.

Early in the week, I made a trip to Fremont, one of my favorite Seattle neighborhoods, to check out a destination that has long been on my “must see” list.  Artsy, unique, and full of eclectic shops, restaurants, breweries, and artisan food businesses, Fremont is a highlight of any trip to Seattle, and I love spending time there exploring all it has to offer.

But on this most recent visit, my destination was more specific –  the Theo Chocolate Factory.

Theo offers tours throughout the week, and I was excited to embark on my first ever chocolate factory tour – not to mention looking forward to the multiple samples that were alluringly promised. The tour didn’t disappoint…it was interesting, fun, and informative – and the quality of their artisan chocolate absolutely blew me away.

What I hadn’t expected, however, was to come away from the hour-long tour so profoundly moved…not just by the chocolate, but by the business itself – the vision, the passion, the desire to make a difference in the world.

In honor of Valentine’s Day – and the love of all things chocolate – this week’s Cookbook of the Week is Theo Chocolate. …

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Snow Day

Western Washington woke up Monday morning to a blanket of snow…and I woke up to the call that school was cancelled.

A snow day – it doesn’t get much better than that.

We haven’t had a lot of snow for the last few years, so this was an unexpected treat – a rare day off to hunker down and stay put.  I had stocked up on cinnamon bread and supplies to make hot chocolate, a “snow day” tradition in my family, in the hopes that the meteorologist’s forecast might be right.

It started to snow on Sunday just after the Super Bowl ended, and on the drive home it was coming down hard…big fat flakes pelting the windshield and quickly covering the ground. I was in and out of bed all night, peeking out the window – just like a kid again, hoping that it would stick. And then that call came…no school today.  As much as I love teaching, the thrill of a snow day never gets old.

I turned on the fireplace, snuggled into the couch, and enjoyed a piece of warm cinnamon bread accompanied by a thick mug of hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream, of course.  I spent the morning paging through a cookbook that I had bought over a year ago…a beautiful book, part memoir and part cookbook, with a chapter entitled “Winter” – full of recipes just perfect for a snowy day.

This week’s Cookbook of the Week is Ruth Reichl’s My Kitchen Year. …

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Football with Dad 

I grew up with a dad who is passionate about football.  With two daughters, and no sons, my dad – a former college quarterback – shared his love of the sport with my sister and me.

Sundays were always one of my favorite days, as that meant relaxing in our basement rec room, an NFL game blaring in the background, my mom keeping us stocked up with snacks…and most of all, spending time with my dad. He would patiently explain the sport to me, taking time to point out the different positions, the intricacies of the plays, and the history of the game.

It wasn’t just Sundays and the NFL games…Friday nights in the fall meant trips to watch our local high school football team, the social event of the week in my small town. While I loved rooting on our hometown Spartans, I have to admit that I loved the halftime trip to the concession stand for a hot dog and hot chocolate just as much. Then there were the visits to Seattle to watch the University of Washington Huskies play; later, when I was a student there, my dad would make the long drive to campus to watch me play quarterback on a co-ed flag football team.

As much as I grew to love the sport – and to this day my fall and early winter weekends are filled with the familiar sounds and sights of football – it was always about so much more than that.

It was about bonding with my dad, of developing a shared passion for the sport, of celebrating that father-daughter connection.

Although our Seahawks didn’t make it to the Super Bowl this year, I’ll still be watching the big game on Sunday…and preparing a spread of “football food” to celebrate the day.

This week’s Cookbook of the Week is Ree Drummond’s The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays.  …

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