Community Supported Agriculture:

For the past few years we have participated in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. The concept is we buy a share in a local farm for the season.

In exchange, for a 22 week stretch from June through October,  we get the most affordable, locally sourced, delicious produce. We also have the option to get fresh eggs with our delivery. Once a week we pick up whatever has been freshly harvested at the farm. The drop-off point is conveniently located 2 miles from our home. Pictured here is the stash from a week in July. Not pictured is a beautiful head of cabbage that we used to make “unstuffed cabbage”.

I would encourage anyone to consider joining a CSA. It is an extremely affordable to way to get the freshest produce and support local farmers – a win-win.

My Aunt Kate, who was my second mother, would have turned 94 today. We miss her very much. Pictured here is a photo from her 93rd birthday. Happy Birthday Aunt Kay-Kay!

I confess! I am a cookbook addict. I probably own hundreds of cookbooks. The problem with this is at times I have made a recipe, I can remember what cookbook it came from but for the life of me I cannot find the book. Sometimes I just wing it from memory but with more complicated recipes this can be an issue. Part of the reason I created my blog is to capture recipes I have enjoyed before they get lost in the great abyss of my cookbook collection.

Thank God for e-books or I would need to add an addition to our house for my cookbook library!

I am not a professionally trained cook. I am a wife, Mom and physician. For many years I juggled a full-time career in medicine, with raising three children, being married to another physician, and  coordinating the social and sports calendars for our  family of five. This did not leave much time for hobbies or creativity. My hobby became cooking as it served a dual purpose: I needed to feed my family and it was my way of being creative. Once, when I was telling a friend I was not a very artistic person, she replied: “Eileen, yes you are artistic, food is your art form!”

The physician and scientist in me approaches cooking like any other subject I tackled in medical school. I love to read cookbooks (and I own hundreds of them). Whether I  make a certain recipe or not,  I learn tips and tricks that I incorporate into my cooking at some point.  My dear friend Debbie once told me  I study cookbooks as though they are textbooks and this is true. I also love to read the stories of cookbook authors, and learn how they evolved as chefs. I love to hear people’s stories in general, and over the 30 years I practiced medicine, hearing my patients’ stories was the part of our relationship I enjoyed the most.

One of my favorite set of cookbooks is from the America’s Test Kitchen. Their  motto is: “we make the mistakes, so you don’t have to” and they will prepare a dish many times, tweaking a technique or ingredients, until they have created the best version of that recipe. I am not a recipe developer but  I have read hundreds of cookbooks and try recipes that sound interesting, so the ones I post on the blog are the best and well-loved by my family and friends. My motto is: “I do the recipe reading, so you don’t have to.” I use a recipe as a starting point, but I will switch up a technique or ingredients based on what I have on hand, what I like and what has worked for me in the past. This has sometimes been a source of frustration when people have asked me for recipes because I will give them the original recipe I started with but forget to note the changes I made. When someone then tells me the dish did not turn out the same when they made it, I will sheepishly tell them I left this ingredient  out because I did not have it, or  I substituted this spice for that  because I don’t like the one called for in the recipe. This blog is my attempt to capture the recipes the way I make them, and some of the family stories that go along with the recipes.