On the way back from spending the week with friends, Blake and Karen, on Captiva Island, we decided to take a detour to meet up with two other old friends we don’t get to see very often, who happened to be at Walt Disney World. We were heading toward Tampa and re-routing to Orlando would only a…
After we visited The World of Coke at the Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, we traveled another 600 miles to Captiva, an island off the coast of Florida where we’ll be staying for the rest of the week. Our friends Karen and Blake got married – you met them years ago when we had dinner at…
We woke up in Atlanta, Georgia this morning and decided to go to one of the most sacred spots in the entire Western Hemisphere: The World of Coca-Cola. What might appear as a mere beverage to some is practically a cult in the South. Coke reigns over this city like royalty thanks to the fact…
It’s Time to Make Christmas Candy as Gifts! We’re making Christmas candies, chocolates, and cookies as part of our gift strategy this year. I’m probably most excited about trying my hand at the Jacques Torres Nougat Montilimar, which is going to require a deft hand. (It looked promising, and we stopped in one of his…
Do Any Of You Have a Steak Brandy or Cognac Butter Reduction Recipe? Ten or eleven years ago, I went to a steakhouse in Omaha, Nebraska during a trip home from college. The chef that day had decided to make either a brandy or cognac reduction sauce using the drippings from the beef. Feeling adventurous,…
I mentioned yesterday that I baked a caramel pecan apple pie. We had some surplus homemade pastry dough and granny smith apples from the two granny smith apple pies I made on Thanksgiving, using my favorite apple pie recipe. I wanted to try something different, and needed to find another apple pie recipe that didn’t require…
Aaron asked me if I would make a couple of my apple pies for Thanksgiving with my family tomorrow. It’s been awhile since I baked this particular pie recipe. He brought it up three or four times, each entreaty accompanied by ever-escalating puppy dog eyes, so I knew he wanted me to do it even though I…
We met up with friends at a new wood-fired Italian Neapolitan pizza restaurant that opened 45 minutes north of Kansas City called Il Lazzarone. This is the same group with which we regularly try new restaurants, though I’ve been terrible about posting them all over the years. We sat inside for hours talking about everything from economics, rental…
I’ve tried to keep some semblance of privacy around my life since the blog audience has grown but, for a brief moment in time, I’m going to suspend that rule and write to you like I would have circa 2009 when it was mostly just Aunt Donna and a few other readers. Being so exposed makes me…
My earliest memories in life are in the early 1980’s. At that time, the older generation who cooked the food at family gatherings, church dinners, and social events in small town America that made up the fabric of my childhood was born between the late 1800’s and the mid 1920’s. There was a certain common thread that…