Let’s say that I started this post for the Super Bowl and now it’s become a March Madness idea. Good thing turkey jerky lasts that long.

I have been negligent here because of some travel and some moving of my dad from Denver to Santa Monica – now he’ll have to become a liberal, get pedicures, and buy his weed in back alleys.

My dad’s profession was in sales of athletic wear. He worked for a company that manufactured all the uniforms for nearly all the professional sports teams. Long before Nike, this humble company, located in the middle of Wisconsin, wove the textiles and then constructed uniforms that would protect the likes of the Packers, the Yankees, and the Lakers. Like a Midwestern Don Draper, he’d go to conventions and meet up with team owners and coaches, drinking Canadian Club Manhattans while jotting down next season’s orders on a napkin and then sealing the deal with a handshake. read more

Did you wake up today in need of a healthy detox that relieves cotton-mouth as a bonus? Happy New Year to you and your resolution because we have a juicing concoction worked out in our kitchen laboratory that replicates the crazy deliciousTrue Food Kitchen’snectar of the gods. Let me be up front about this – I do not like kale juice or kale chips. Somehow in those presentations kale tastes like food meant for gophers. One cannot ignore the health bennies of this hearty green so when TFK served up a thirst quenching, delicious kale drink, I set out to replicate it at home. read more

This might be the easiest recipe, producing the most transformative results that ever has found placement onto our little blog that could.

2 ingredients and 2 minutes

Y’all know that without guilt we can sing the virtues of dark chocolate.

Anyone need a mental boost – shopping inertia, test cramming, holiday schedule matrix, greeting card blur, cookie comas, last-minute DIY project, travel planning (did I tell you the one about booking Thanksgiving travel for the week before Thanksgiving – good fares)?

Just when you’ve barely pulled your head above water and pat your back in pride on a season well-handled – the mass of gifts glistening in the horizon – bags stacked in a disarray, unopened Amazon boxes, shipping envelopes from places you don’t recall because you ordered items way back at the first of December – that mass is our Holiday bitch, she puts the ho in holiday, she goes by the name of Wrapping.

Now let’s get a chocolate fix with peppermint bark before we crumble. read more

Leftovers need rebranding. Can we consider leftovers to be more like heightened ingredients? Super-ingredients that give us a headstart toward another meal. Uber-ingredients that are a crunchtimer’s dream. Ultra-ingredients that make miracle meals out of real food in minutes. No, they’re not leftovers at all. They’re mealstarters. Mealstarters that turn mash potatoes into potato-leek soup, stuffing into croutons, cranberry salad into smoothies, squash into soup, gravy into, well gravy turns into fat butts so that doesn’t work, but you get the picture. Now, picture your Thanksgiving turkey as a mealstarter for turkey pot pie. Pot pie that barely slices into your time. Barely slices into your time. Turkey Pot Pie. (is my Scandal binge-viewing showing? Maybe I need a “leader of the free world” reference).

If you have a secret stash of puff pastry in your fridge or a crafty pie pastry recipe plus a previously cooked bird- you can make this family pleasing meal right now. It takes only a few basic ingredients. read more

Are we good? Menus planned, tablescapes envisioned, family baggage in storage. Just in case, I’m taking this online classto ready the table and reminded of these easy foodstuff ideas…

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