How to Roast a Lamb – A book review

Apr 122012
 

There is a single word in Greek, kefi, that explains a philosophy of life. Kefi is the culmination of a celebration when music, dance, food, liquor, and the company you share intersect. The effect is so ethereal and the feeling so euphoric that you realize this is what life is about. It isn’t material possessions – the size of your house or the kind of car you drive – that are important. It’s the joy you derive from celebrating life with the people you love.

Michael Psilakis

This cookbook is a love story. About a man and his family. His family and food. And food as love.

Michael Psilakis has written a cookbook that you just want to sit down and read with a glass of wine in the evening. He’s crafted a story about his family, including his personal story about his relationship with his late father, that can make you misty-eyed at times. Love, faith, teenage angst and family dinners all coincide and then you look up, and remember it’s a cookbook. . .

Salad as a Meal – a book review

Mar 122012
 

Love at First Sight I picked up Salad as a Meal: Healthy Main-Dish Salads for Every Season on a whim at the library recently.  It looked like my kind of book.  Along with Dorie Greenspan and Georgeanne Brennan, Patricia Wells is one of my favorite modern  French cookbook authors. I either own, or habitually borrow from the library my favorite books of theirs over and over and re-read them like I re-read my favorite novels; every few years or so I have to revisit them for renewed inspiration. So I brought it home and began to browse through it after the kids were in bed.  Within a few minutes I had to set the book down and rummage through the junk drawer. I was in search of my stash of [... To read more, click here ...]

Real Cajun – a book review

Mar 142011
 

It my pleasure to share with you my review for  Real Cajun: Rustic Home Cooking from Donald Link’s Louisiana by Donald Link. “The pleasure,” you ask?  Seriously?  Yes.  Because if you could be just a little bit smitten with a cookbook, I confess that I am with this one. Maybe it’s the way Link describes how he grew up, where “every occasion of [his] life revolved around food,” much like mine has, or how his food memories are rich with the aroma of past meals, lingering “in the thick Louisiana air,” he paints a picture as eloquently with words as with ingredients. Link explains, “Real Cajun food translates to the best ingredients of the area, simply prepared.  The flavors are focused and the food is highly seasoned . . . [... To read more, click here ...]

Review – Little Star

Dec 022010
 

When your three-and-a-half year old asks you to read the same bedtime story three nights in a row, you know you have a winner. . . As anyone who knows me well knows, I am a lover of books. I give people books for birthdays and anniversaries, at baby showers and graduations, for wedding gifts.  And when we began our family, I immediately set forth starting our future children’s library. For the past few Christmas seasons I’ve slowly been researching and buying a few select books each year to add to our Christmas collection.  Each January I store them away with our Christmas and Advent decorations, and each November we take them out anew for reading during Advent in preparation of Christmas. With little ones, we have everything from board [... To read more, click here ...]

Review : In the Kitchen: Real Food Basics

Oct 282010
 

Are you like me? You read Nourishing Traditions, or stumbled across the Weston A. Price foundation’s website, got inspired to make changes to your diet, and then went, “okay, where to begin?” and immediately felt overwhelmed? Did you flip through the tome, trying desperately just to find a simple dinner or snack that your in-transition-to-real-foods family or children would eat that was familiar and without having to spend a lot of money buying new ingredients for your pantry? If you answered yes and are in the midst of the transition to a more real foods diet, but have questions on how to implement it successfully in a modern American family, my fellow real food blogger, Kate Tietje of Modern Alternative Mama has written the cookbook for you; In the Kitchen [... To read more, click here ...]

Review – Herbal Nurturing: A Family Healing & Learning Guide

Oct 182010
 

I grew up in a family that straddled the naturopathic and pharmaceutical world quite eloquently.  My mom both encouraged gargling with sea salt & lemon concoctions, and purchased cough drops to stash in our backpacks whenever a sore throat reared it’s ugly head.  My mom swore by the idea that Food was our Miracle Medicine and that we could find healing for much of life’s ailments in nature.  In college I studied aromatherapy and the use of essential oils, even teaching classes on basic aromatherapy and relaxation techniques to my colleagues during conferences. But then I graduated.  Got a corporate job.  Got married.  Had a family.  And I found that I didn’t have the time to devote to my herbal studies anymore. Sure, I tried to buy some “natural” skincare [... To read more, click here ...]

Review – Feeding the Whole Family

Feb 232010
 

When you’re out grocery shopping and choosing the food your family eats, Cynthia Lair, author of “Feeding the Whole Family: Recipes for Babies, Young Children and their Parents” asks you to consider the following: Can I imagine it growing? How many ingredients does it have? What’s been done to the food since it was harvested? Is this product “part” of a food or the “whole” entity? How long has this food been known to nourish human beings? On it’s third edition, Lair’s cookbook for feeding the whole family is chock full of great information and inspiring recipes. Spanning the globe with influences from French, Greek, Thai and the American Northwest cuisines, Lair’s recipes are varied and easy and incorporate real, whole foods. The first 55 pages are introductory, and truly, [... To read more, click here ...]

Review – 50 Dangerous Things (you should let your children do)

Feb 022010
 

We have an antique wagon in our collection that my dad and his siblings played with when they were children. Crafted out of heavy-duty steel, the wagon is unique with air-filled dualie wheels in the back and an interesting axle and hitch system. I asked my dad about it one day and he mentioned that his younger brother had broken the axle once and had then welded a whole new bottom, drilled out and extended the axle, made it a dualie for better maneuverability and put a hitch on the back so he could not only pull another wagon behind the first, but pull both on his bike, which he had also outfitted with a hitch. Age of completion? 8. When was the last time you let your 8-year-old weld? [... To read more, click here ...]

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