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Is Sugar Toxic? Depends on how much you eat.

60 Minutes aired a segment on sugar and it’s evils last night, called Is Sugar Toxic?.  I predict that now we will see a slew of ongoing articles detailing how sugar consumption is up and so is diabetes, heart disease and obesity.  All true.  In addition, 75% of these illnesses are completely man-created and can [...]

It’s Always Something

It seems as if there’s always something one could fret about when it comes to bees – too hot, too cold, too moist, too dry, predators, mites, not enough flowers/pollen – a person could loose sleep!  Luckily, that’s not my style, I tend toward the “live and let go” side of the fence, trusting that [...]

Catering for 20 – Ahhh, Now We’re Talking

Sometimes it’s such a relief to cook for the same number I cook for all summer long.  It must sound funny, but it’s actually LESS thinking for me.  I don’t have to hold back on amounts like I do when cooking for the family or testing recipes and even then half the time I end [...]

Building a Greenhouse – ups and… downs

Certainly when the girls and Jon gifted me with a greenhouse for Mother’s Day last year, this is not what I was hoping for when I walked to the back of the house one recent blustery day! The winds blow so hard on our property that securing this house to the ground somehow becomes a [...]

Scratch Baking Co. Bagels

Up until I discovered Scratch Baking Co.’s bagel recipe in their new and really cool journal, Baker’s Notes, I’d been using Julia Child’s/Dorie Greenspan‘s in Baking with Julia Child.  Fear not Julia and Dorie, you both remain Goddesses to me.  Both recipes are good and because the descriptions are so detailed, I was able to [...]

Homemade Chicken Nuggets – Latest Column

Recently Ella asked what a chicken nugget was and in one of those parenting moments when you realize so many things all at once, I thought about how sheltered she is, how lucky she is, how proud I am of the choices we are able to make and also, how sad that she doesn’t get [...]

My Grandma in My Garden

Each year when we visited my grandparents for three summer weeks in their rural home in New York, we’d spend our time doing essentially nothing.  It wasn’t exciting, it wasn’t exhilarating and it wasn’t elucidating.  Sometimes it was boring.  The funny thing is, however, that now I look back on those days with a rosy, [...]

No Knead Bread – Roasted Pear and Oatmeal Bread

No knead sourdough bread is super easy on the arms and the Kitchen Aid.  All it takes is time.  After the dust of the holiday festivities had settled, I still had a refrigerator full of food needing immediate use.  This bread began with a little bit of leftover oatmeal from the morning’s breakfast and became [...]

Upcycled Project – Where Have You Seen This Fabric?

My sewing machine whirred away for a while this Christmas season in an attempt to give small, meaningful gifts from the heart rather than the pocket book.  These coasters were one such gift and I’ll be posting about others over the next few months.  For those who have sailed on the Riggin already, the striped [...]

Peanut Butter Banana Waffle – Family Favorite

When I was testing waffle recipes for the column, Jon and I had an assembly line going.  Me making batter, him cooking the waffles.  Click over to the Portland Press Herald to find recipes for Potato Cilantro, Chili Chocolate, Mocha or Coconut Orange Chocolate Waffles. Peanut Butter Banana Waffles 1 ripe banana, mashed 1/2 cup [...]

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