Growing up my family generally reserved extended family meals to gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We alternated between our house and my dad’s brother’s house. I have many happy memories of those holidays.  Sunday dinners for my husband were a ritual throughout his childhood and beyond.

I am in a Book Club through my membership in Executive Club of Champaign County.  The Book Club formed about six years ago and six of the nine of us have been in the group since its start.  The routine is that the meeting place rotates to each member's home each month and she serves a meal and selects book recommendations for a

As a semi-regular topic, I thought it would be fun to extol the virtues of my often-used  kitchen gadgets in this blog.  Today's feature ... drum roll ...

It's Saturday morning and the time we make our menu plan for the upcoming week.  We've been organizing meal planning this way for the past five years or so.  Prior to that, I tried to be organized, but it always evolved to day to day dinner selections and many stops at the store on my way home from work ...

Last summer, John introduced kale to our backyard garden line up. I found some nice recipes and discovered we like it and grew it again this year.  I made salads out of the young plants, braised it and used it in soups.