If You Only Read One Thing Today...

...read this one, published originally in the NYT.  Stories like this are important, even if they have the unintended result of diverting attention to the righteous exceptions and away from the massive systemic flaws that create failure as a rule (ie--if we keep focusing on the people who "make it," we stop looking at the conditions that nearly require the majority to remain impoverished, unemployed, and poorly educated). I Was a Welfare Mother By LARKIN WARREN Bethel, Conn. I WAS a welfare mother, “dependent upon government,” as Mitt Romney so bluntly put it in a video...

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Pumpkin Bread Two Ways

MamaKef makes just about the most delicious pumpkin bread on earth (and it's my Aunt Carole's recipe, so we're really talking about a family affair here). Strangely, I have no picture of it, despite knowing that I have photographed it at every Thanksgiving and Christmas since 1999. What I do have a picture of, however, is the imitation version I made for my first shift EVER as an RN (yowza!).  You already KNOW this gluten-free sugar-free pumpkin bar is delicious, because no sane person would ever bring a sub-par treat into the nurse's station of a very busy unit without being 100% positive...

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A Birthday Cake

So, there I was. The morning of my twenty-seventh birthday and the gluten-free, sugar-free, four-layer devil's food cake I had made myself had just slid right off the cake plate and now resembled a Leaning Tower of Sugar-Free Piza. I know-- happens to EVERYONE. Let's back up a bit. I had spent quite a few weeks researching and thinking about the perfect birthday cake for someone of my palate (which is to say, I spent all my waking moments looking for a cake was that "healthy" but tasted decidedly UNhealthy).  I tinkered about in the kitchen (ok fine, I made and ate entire batches of test...

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Live Your Best Life

I babysit for two of the sweetest children alive, E & W. After looking forward to his 4th birthday for about 9 months, W had an existential crisis the night before the Big Day. Mom, to W: Aren't you so excited? Today is the last day you'll be three--tomorrow you'll be four! W: But, Mom-- I loved three! I'm going to miss three! Mom: Four is going to be so great! And when you're five you'll go to kindergarten, and when you're six you'll learn to read, and by the time you're seven you'll be able to ride a two-wheeler all by yourself ... which birthday do you think will be your favorite? W:...

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Butternut Squash "Spaghetti"

I thought about not blogging today.  It seems strange to spend time thinking and writing about the banalities of butternut squash on a day with such looming significance.   I didn't know anyone who was in the either of the Towers that day, nor did I know anyone in lower Manhattan.  Back then, the only people in my sleepy suburb who worked in the city were fire fighters and police officers, and so for our town the horror of the day grew more personal as time went by-- no one I knew had a parent who worked in the World Trade Center, but we all knew parents who went down to...

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One Cake, Two Ways

This Monday is too beautiful for me to be inside blogging--so Ima get right to it: today, we're working with two versions of a hearty strawberry cake with buttercream icing.  One is full of sugar, flour, and deliciousness; the other is for those interested in a sugar-free, gluten-free, almost-paleo treat.  I will leave you to guess which is which: So--why two cakes? Earlier this summer, I was honored to bake the cake for my Aunt Tina's wedding, and though I'm sure everyone would have loved knowing their dessert qualified as "clean eating," we decided to go the traditional flour-sugar-butter...

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A Pretty Fig-Almond Tart

Welcome to the first week of the best month of the year: September! It can't be long until QueijoKef and I initiate Operation EAPAAAT: Eat Any Pumpkin Available At Any Time! Usually, I bring you a dish whose picture doesn't quite do justice to its taste.  Today, we have the opposite.  Doesn't this Fig Frangipane tart look yummy? Yes, I thought so too when I saw this post on Tastespotting.  But of course I couldn't just leave well enough alone; I had to take a perfectly delicious-sounding recipe and make it gluten free and sugar free.  This usually works out quite well...

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