A photo from my lazy summer Hi there.  As some of you have noticed, this blog has been sitting here, neglected, for about 9 months.  I don’t have a very good explanation – no family crises or sudden deaths.  I appreciate all of the emails I have received and I apologize if I didn’t get back to you.  I feel guilty about the kind and generous emails I never responded to.  Please know that I did...

Primal Pumpkin Pie I have mixed feelings about eating primal on Thanksgiving.  On the one hand, so many delicious foods can be prepared in a primal way that there is truly no need to feel deprived.  After all, the turkey and the vegetables present no problems, gravy can be thickened with arrowroot, and even a tasty batch of quick rolls can be whipped up using almond flour. On the other hand, this tends to...

I mentioned in the 6-week-cure post that Dave and I were headed to Costa Rica for a week in November.  We thought of this as a belated honeymoon for us since we never had a wedding and all that.  In fact, we got married at a lawyer’s office on an otherwise uneventful Thursday afternoon in February when I was 11 weeks pregnant and on crutches from a sprained ankle.  It’s all a blur now.  Actually, so...

Dave getting ready to eat his fancy stuffed pork chop There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.  You know all the fancy photos of the food on this site?  The ones that make it look like we live in some kind of Autumn paradise.  Or the ones that look like we spend our evenings gathered around a cozy dining room table sipping wine?  It’s all fake.  Well, the food is real, but the rest of it is...

Last summer I wrote and received a grant for my kids’ co-op preschool to fund a new program promoting the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.   The program is called “Try It Day”.   Once a week, another parent or I bring in samples of a given fruit or vegetable.  The kids all get a chance to try it before snack time.   If they try it, or even just lick it, they get a sticker...

Before I started eating primal, I used to sit down with my cookbooks on the weekend and plan out each meal for the upcoming week.  I would make a detailed grocery list that included every ingredient I didn’t already have.  Then I set out on a mission to buy everything I needed as cheaply as possible.  In retrospect the meals seem disjointed.  They were not only disconnected from each other but totally...

I think cardamom is an under-utilized spice.  If you’re not familiar with cardamom, it has a slightly sweet, pungent flavor that can be used in savory meat dishes, curries, and baked goods.  You can also add some to your coffee grounds.  My mom makes a cardamom braid at Christmas so I always associate cardamom with a colder season. I was thinking about how I might use cardamom more often and decided it...

I heard that it might actually snow over the weekend. Even though it is much much too early for snow, I suppose this means we are officially headed into the dark months. I am always lured in by the cheerful promise of the upcoming holidays. Then, after the anti-climax of New Years, I’ll find myself standing on some bleak, windy hill pretending that sledding is fun and wondering if I’ll ever be...

Pardon my absence as of late.  I haven’t been feeling like posting much mainly because I haven’t been cooking much.  Here it is the fall harvest season and I’ve done little more in the kitchen this last week than whip up a few meals for the kids and cut up a rotisserie chicken.  The reason?  In a very un-primal manner I have been drinking protein shakes for breakfast and lunch followed by a simple...

Sri Lankan Coconut Chicken Curry If I believed in such things, I would say I spent a former life in Southern Asia.  I have always been fascinated with this area of the world and I adore Indian cuisine.  At various times throughout my life I have tried to travel there but have always been thwarted or disrailed in one way or another (mom, if you’re reading this, I don’t mean by you).  I even tried...