I am not a fan of pumpkin. There, I said it. I like pumpkins for decoration, like seeing them growing in patches, maybe painting one for Halloween, but in terms of pumpkin bread, pumpkin pies, pumpkin spice lattes? Not my thing. Growing up, we were a sweet potato pie family and that’s always stuck with me. Now the experienced foodies out there probably know by now that with most dishes, whether you use sweet potato or pumpkin, the spices are often the same and there’s …

SAVEUR Executive Food Editor Todd Coleman has a great technique for peeling an entire head of garlic in less than 10 seconds, no knife required.

I’ve seen tricks for quickly peeling a clove at a time, but never for peeling an entire head of garlic at once. When I’ve made Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic, I follow Ina Garten’s suggestion of quickly placing the cloves into boiling water to loosen up the skins, which works, but unless you have asbestos hands, you’re still dealing with a lot …

I know, I know, I already posted a recipe for “The Best” Sangria a year ago that remains one of my most visited pages on this site. Well, no disrespect to America’s Test Kitchen, but while their recipe is good, I think I’ve improved upon the original. As much as I see Sangria as a make-ahead recipe, I wanted to change it up a little bit that would allow it to only have to sit for a short time but release the “bite” that wine can sometimes have. …

Since Saturday turned out to be extremely pleasant, after hitting the 14th & U Farmers Market, we decided to venture over to Woodley Park and find a bit of brunch. I hadn’t been to any of the restaurants along the row for brunch–or any meal in quite some time–but we decided to give French a try.
Petits Plats bills itself as, “The best French Restaurant in the heart of Woodley Park with very distinguished cuisine and variety selection of wine.”
As we’ve only been there …

Loyal readers–all 3 of you–of this blog should know that I love my slow-cooker, crock pot, whatever you want to call it. Whether it’s making barbecue or mulling cider, it’s a nice and easy “no fuss” method of cooking that you can prepare well in advance and cook mostly unattended. It’s a bit like those old films of “Life in the Future” mixed with modern film techniques. I dump ingredients into the device in the morning, turn a dial, press a button and go to work. …

I’m sure you’ve been in suspense this entire time about whether I met Ina Garten and if she made me one of her fabulous friends up in the Hamptons. Have I left my life in DC behind to go from dazzling urbanite to scintillating suburbanite? Well the short answer is no and the long answer is noooooo.

I did get to “meet” her, more or less, but getting to that point is a tale in the telling. I haven’t been to too many book …

Last week I was invited to try out Buddha-Bar DC‘s new “wallet-friendly” lunch options along with some other bloggers and journalists. I hadn’t been to Buddha Bar before, but one of the consistent opinions among friends were that the entree prices were a little on the high side, so this is a much-welcomed addition. Buddha-Bar is nestled into the still-growing corridor on Massachusetts Ave NW near Chinatown and the Convention Center but mostly what’s gone in there are apartment buildings and condos save for the CityVista …

A few months back there was all kinds of fuss in the cocktail world about the “pickle back”. A shot of pickle juice served after a shot of whiskey, lauded by many as a great combination. Pickle juice cocktails were soon to follow, cute but not terribly long lasting as a drinking fad.
I got ALL of that beat. Way way back in the Summer of 2003, the guy I was dating had gotten me to sit down and watch Office Space for the first time …

Confession time: I have never cared for Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latté. You may commence pelting me with scones at your leisure. I do, however, love the fervor with which its return is welcomed every year–this being the 7th–by Starbucks fans and even the occasional Starbucks hater. The coming of the Pumpkin Spice Latté seems to be one of the cultural signs of the coming of Fall, even though the first day of Autumn is weeks away. In DC we’re still experiencing temperatures in the mid-90s, so …

Just a little food porn to get your Monday morning off to a good start. A friend and I have started cracking open our cookbooks in an attempt to get back to the fun of cooking and since these happen to be collections of lighter and healthier recipes, it doesn’t hurt the bottom line either. Above is a “Lighter” Fettucine Alfredo from America’s Test Kitchen which cut the usual cals/fat by roughly 40% or so. They use fresh (or store-packaged fresh) pasta, swap out the …