family

Over at Culinate there’s a nice piece by Zanne Miller about making bread with her daughters. What’s interesting is that it was the daughters who instigated the family bread-making, Miller herself admits to thinking that it was going to be too hard, or take too long, or be a pain. It’s a lovely piece...
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I realized the other day while making paté that my KitchenAid mixer turned 35 this year — thirty five years this yellow baby has been churning out egg whites and cookie dough and cake batter. The last couple of years it’s repetoire has expanded to include pasta dough and grinding meat — it’s a...
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“Do you want some moose liver?” the MH asked this weekend. “I’ve got 30 pounds of it.” “Sure,” I answered. “I’ll take some — I’ll probably just make paté though.”  I mean, I was game for antelope liver last fall, but moose? Moose are enormous — the one that the MH’s son shot this...
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Patrick would be 42 today — it’s always a bittersweet day, to say the least. But even though he’s no longer with us, I like to celebrate his memory on his birthday. Like the Day of the Dead when we decorate graves with flowers and take our dead relatives their favorite foods and drinks...
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Somehow we’ve managed to live a little too large here at LivingSmall, the debt-to-savings ratio has gotten itself upside down, and so we’re trying to cut back wherever we can. I’m the kind of person who buys pantry staples when I’m feeling existentially anxious, and so, in the spirit of economizing, I’ve found myself...
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Once the heat wave passed it seems like everyone in town has been riding around on those retro-cruiser bikes. I was on the verge of going to buy one when I remembered that duh! I have a bike! I bought this bike a couple of years ago for forty bucks at the pawn shop...
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Monday night I got a phone call from my cousin Jason’s wife. I thought she was calling to thank me for the baby present I’d sent a few days earlier, but it turns out she was calling because my 95 year old grandmother, who lives on our farm with Jason and Jackie and my...
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After last week’s post on cleaning out my freezer, my old friend Constance emailed me from Taiwan (where she has lived ever since she married the Chinese Pop Star). Constance wrote: I suggest that you go Vietnamese with your Game and Pork burgers- I did an Indochine Burger thing with Buffalo and pork at...
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Yes — that’s my dad, happy — hard to believe from the grumpy look on his face — and he’s happy because I sent him a big box of mac-and-cheese for his birthday. Dad lives in the Czech Republic and he too has a blog, PragueWriter.com From Dad: Post lady stopped by yesterday morning...
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I’ve been seeing reviews all over the place of Barbara Kingsolver’s new book about eating locally — she’s not necessarily one of my favorite writers, but between this interview over at Salon, and  this piece she wrote for Mother Jones I might just have to go get a copy. Here’s a quote from the...
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