There’s something intimidating about pastry. It’s hard to roll out perfect circles or to put it into pie pans without it cracking. Plus, there are too many people online who are true artists with dough, and that is extremely intimidating when I start hunting for new recipes. The recipe I tried this week, though, is meant to look a little […]

I have a bad habit of skipping over steps in recipes when I look over them, trying to decide whether or not I should give them a try. More than once, I’ve started baking something, only to realize halfway through that I have to stop and chill an ingredient for an hour or overnight before moving on to the next […]

When I was younger, I knew it was going to be a great supper if I saw my mom’s electric skillet sitting out on the counter. That meant we were having fried potatoes as our side dish for dinner. I can still smell them cooking when I think about that skillet. It was one of my favorite things. Mom would […]

Until I married Joey, German chocolate cake was a dessert I was vaguely aware of but not one I’d eaten very often. But it’s Joey’s absolute favorite—the flavor he chose for his groom’s cake at our wedding, in fact—so it’s become something I’ve had more often over the years. Since Joey recently celebrated a birthday, I decided to bake him […]

I hate cooking chicken. I think it’s all the scare tactics people use when talking about salmonella and separate cutting boards. It’s also the slimy factor when I remove the skin or trim off extra fat. I would use ground meat for every recipe if I could. Despite my hatred for cooking it, I do enjoy eating chicken, so I […]

One summer, when I was volunteering at camp, I was recruited to be in a skit where the actors had to do whatever the narrator said. It was silly, and the kids loved watching us all make fools of ourselves while we were directed to crawl around and say weird phrases. My character had to eat chocolate—lots of it. The […]

Recently, I scrolled through Pinterest—as I often do—looking for recipes that I could try. A picture of a well-worn, yellowed piece of paper caught my eye. It was a handwritten recipe with the words “War Cake” written in a beautiful script across the top of the page. I was intrigued by it and clicked on the link. There, on a […]

A pastor friend of mine noted on social media the other day that 2018 is a weird year, with Lent beginning on Valentine’s Day and Easter falling on April Fool’s Day. He was excited at the sermon possibilities that may come from it. I started thinking about folks who will avoid taking their dates out for expensive steak or lobster […]

While spending summer days alone at home, between bouts of trying to kill each other, my sister and I would often spend time creating stupid videos that our parents tactfully refused to watch when they came home (good move), playing with the farm cats outdoors and pretending to be world famous chefs as we prepared the few lunches we knew […]

While spending summer days alone at home, between bouts of trying to kill each other, my sister and I would often spend time creating stupid videos that our parents tactfully refused to watch when they came home (good move), playing with the farm cats outdoors and pretending to be world famous chefs as we prepared the few lunches we knew […]