As I was driving today I looked down and saw the thermometer telling me that the temperature outside was 100 degrees. Brutal. When it is as hot as this it can be incredibly hard to motivate to cook. Afterall, who wants to stand in front of a hot stove, turn on the oven, or even…
A month or so ago I did a cooking demonstration and workshop where I talked about easy ways to integrate healthier alternatives into your daily diet. One of my props for that workshop was a jar of store-bought marinara sauce. Now, as many of you know, I usually make my tomato sauce from scratch, but…
I have never much liked water. It always tastes bland and uninspiring to me, so staying well hydrated has often been a challenge. There are so many reasons why drinking enough water is important from decreased cravings and mindless snacking to better health to better skin. But none of these was really enough of a…
Let’s get real for a minute: cooking can be intimidating, especially for those of us who were never taught how to cook by a loved one. There is a lot of jargon and oftentimes recipe authors make assumptions about what the cook already knows. To make matters worse, there are a number of cooking fundamentals…
Today I did something that was completely terrifying to me: I made a live video on Periscope about how to organize your kitchen for efficient cooking. Making this video was something that I had been thinking about, talking about, and putting off for 10 months!! When I told people how nervous I was to do…
Spring is a time of rebirth, rejuvenation, and fresh starts! It is a time of shaking off the old and starting with the new. For me, it has always been a more logical time than new years to start new habits—I have more energy and more enthusiasm as the days get brighter and longer. This…
Each Monday I teach a cooking class to a group of first through fourth graders at a local school. The focus of the class is on cooking healthy snacks and goodies, but it is also a way for me to start to teach them some fundamental cooking skills and concepts. This week I wanted to…
When I was seven my parents got called into a parent-teacher conference because I was having trouble in the late mornings at school. During recess I would fight with the boys (literal kicking matches—I won a lot) and would also get frustrated during lessons when I didn’t feel like I understood. My parents couldn’t figure…
If the forecasters are right, we here in the Washington, DC area are about to get socked with a blizzard that is expected to leave 2 feet of snow in its wake. This will likely shut things down around here in a big way for at least a day (probably more knowing this crazy city)….
It’s true. Cooking can feel like a burden sometimes. It can feel like yet another thing that has to get done in the day, another obligation, another chore. And yet we also all know that eating home-cooked foods is better for our health, our wallet, and our emotional well-being. So how do we reconcile these…