use real butter

Recipe: cucumber shrimp rolls

My dearest Barbara,

We’ve never met. But we are friends. I checked Google Maps and they say you are a 13,804-mile trip from my house in Colorado. But you really aren’t so far from me.

Did you know that while my house sits at 8500 feet above sea-level and you live on the waterfront, I still look up to you?

In Google’s directions to your place, I have three segments of kayaking several thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean. And every stroke would be worth it.

spring clover in california

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Recipe: roasted butternut squash soup simplified

I know a lot of people are traveling today. I hope everyone got to or gets to their destination safely and without incident. We are staying put – the way we like it. Keeps things low key and stress free. I went to the dentist this morning to get fitted for a crown and realized that after an hour, I could feel my gums again. So I think that may be why I suffered such immense pain yesterday because my dentist was jamming the posts down my root canals about 2 hours after she numbed my mouth. *Great* I love it when that happens! Today was a walk in the park by comparison.

While most folks are preparing their turkeys, we have been contemplating the leftovers (there are a lot) as well as eating them. Those potatoes au gratin really do get better with time.

turkey reuben, anyone?

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Recipe: pumpkin ice cream

Happy Halloween! I can hear the voices of my neighbor’s little kids outside. All of that excitement. All of that anticipation. I feel it too! It’s starting to get dark now and I have our bowl of candy at the ready in the mud room. Kaweah just came back from a brisk walk around the neighborhood with Jeremy while I was manning the door for early trick-or-treaters. She was so excited she ran up to me and gave me the sniff down as if she hadn’t seen me in days (she was gone for all of 15 minutes). See, when kids ring the doorbell, Kaweah thinks they are UPS or FedEx delivery people. All of our FedEx and UPS peeps in our neighborhood carry dog treats. Add to that, the fact that kids are closer to eye level with Kaweah and she is so excited you think her bottom half is going to wiggle off. I’ve eaten three baby Twix already. I’ve got to stop now.

at the ready

So there is some good news to share. I have a nice deal from Fine Cooking that allows me to give gift subscriptions at nearly half the rate. Tell you what I’m gonna do: I will award TWO subscriptions to Fine Cooking! And, since some folks can’t seem to get their deadlines straight, I will grant amnesty and allow all comments up until the time we hold the drawing. I don’t know when we’ll get to it – so if you haven’t commented yet, do so now by clicking here.

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