People sometimes ask me about  my favorite restaurant. Lately Adam and I tell them, “at your house or my house.” We just love enjoying home-cooked meals with friends. For my birthday dinner, I asked my friend Jill if we could come over to her apartment in New York.
She made a delicious recipe from Ina Garten’s Back to Basics, “Pappa al Pomodoro,” a hearty vegetable soup.
Jillian and Paul have a sandwich press, and after enjoying wonderful pressed sandwiches made with pancetta, gruyere, and homemade aioli, I’m thinking we need one.

Jillian and …

For my Food Lover’s Book Club discussion of Anthony Bourdain’s Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook, I decided to make “Bloody Valentine Plum Tarts.” I found a recipe for “Warm Plum Bleeding Heart Pies,” online and decided to add dripping blood shapes and red sprinkles to the crust to create a more realistic bloody valentine look.
These tarts would be perfect for a Halloween dessert or dinner with an ex-husband or wife.
Bloody Valentine Plum Tarts
Based on Melissa’s Everyday Cooking with Organic Produce …

I’m part of a potluck group called Supperfly, hosted each month at a different home with a theme decided by the host. For some reason, I decided to try Smith Island Cake for a recent Supperfly where the theme was to make something that’s your favorite color. I’m not exactly sure what my favorite color is but chocolate is one of Adam and my favorite foods so it seemed close enough to the theme.
That same week, a recipe for Smith Island Cake, apparently the “Official Cake of the State of …

It’s tomato season and a great time to experiment with making your own mozzarella. Making your own cheese? I don’t think Adam and I thought we could do it until we attended a seminar on cheese making at home presented by Austin Homebrew and Slow Food Austin earlier this year. Our friend Carla of Austin Urban Gardens made mozzarella from a cheese kit purchased at Austin Homebrew recently and she told us that it was pretty doable.
Once we found Austin Homebrew (it’s moved from Burnet just north of 183 to …

Adam and I are checking out Green Gate Farms CSA this month — splitting a full share with our friends Laura and Mike. CSA stands for “Community Supported Agriculture,” and basically is a way to connect consumers and farmers directly — cutting out the middle man and ensuring food is eaten at its peak. I think the best part so far is the new recipe experimenting. We picked up our loot last Saturday from our new friend Adelea and she passed along some great recipes. I made my own version …