use real butter

The first time I tried to arrange to meet with Manisha and Kitt for lunch, I asked for suggestions or preferences. Manisha immediately ruled out most of the Indian restaurants in Boulder. I chuckled to myself over that because I would have done the same regarding any of the Chinese restaurants in Boulder. I never doubted for a second that the woman knows her Indian food and today was proof of exactly that.

when i walked in, shalan was heating up malaysian parathas

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Recipe: rugelach

As a scientist and as a lover of the outdoors, I own a lot of field guides because I always want to know what rocks, flowers, trees, bugs, birds, weather phenomena, and critters we encounter.

just a small sampler of my guides

Recently I added another field guide to my collection, but this one won’t help me too much in the backcountry. It’s not quite like the others…

well, hello there

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I think NaBloWriMo is sucking the creative juices from my brain.

I usually plop down and crank out a post lickity split, but today… I’ve been writing and deleting and writing and deleting all afternoon. So I’m giving it one last go and that will be it.

During my recent funk I was having a heck of a time trying to muster up the excitement to cook or bake something and blog about it. You would think I could food blog in my sleep at this point. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I just knew I felt dissatisfied. Once out of that downward spiral, I tried to figure out what the problem was.

I think it was the culmination of various physical ailments coupled with expenditure of all remaining energy on visitors and travel for an extended period of time. Basically, I was getting zero creative input. I wasn’t able to keep up with my favorite food blogs, read my cooking magazines, flip through cookbooks, brainstorm ideas. Oddly, Art Culinaire arrived right at the time things began to settle down for me. Like a spark, it reignited my inspiration.

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