whine & dine

I’ve always struggled with GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome, not gastrointestinal distress/bloating lol). It’s reared its head with basically any interest I’ve had, be it photography, pottery, and – of course – cooking. One of the fun (but space and resource consuming) things about cooking and where my interests lie is that there is such a wide range of techniques (and accompanying equipment!), and that’s just with the cooking and baking, let alone the couple years that I spent hardcore nerding out on cocktails and other drink-related techniques. Keep reading →

You know what I love? I love being wrong. I know that sounds super weird, because — let’s be honest — no one likes finding out that their life has been a LIE, but it’s really not all bad. The fun thing about being wrong is that it means you’ve learned something, and as a die hard information junkie, the benefit of having gained new knowledge almost always outweighs whatever negativity (embarrassment, mostly, I guess?) surrounds finding out you were wrong about something. And I’m delighted to admit that I was wrong about this: I do not hate dried fruit! I actually like dried fruit*! (I only dislike most store bought dried fruit.) Keep reading →

Let’s talk meal prep. We all know the story – nutrition is 80% of the battle. But what happens when you get home too late/tired to make dinner every night, or there aren’t any good diet-compliant options around the office for lunch? For those of you who follow me on IG, you probably know by now that I’ve recently been dabbling in meal prep. The previous Sunday was my first attempt, ever, but I decided to step my game up a little last weekend and document as much of it as I could so I could write about it a little more here. Keep reading →

So this is really more of a PSA than a recipe – as usual I am way late to the game, but pressure cookers have seriously changed my life. This is one piece of kit I’d been hankering after for a long, long time, but between the price tag, not knowing what size to get (do I want a smaller one so I can do all sorts of small batches of stuff all the time, or do I want a big one so I can do GIANT batches of things because I AM TOTALLY AN INDUSTRIAL CENTRAL KITCHEN DONCHA KNOW), and the severe lack of kitchen real estate and already overflowing cupboards and drawers, I just never got round to it. But all that changed when I popped by a friend’s garage sale last month and found a brand new Kuhn Rikon pressure cooker gleaming at me in the corner, amidst a veritable treasure trove of food styling props, cookbooks and kitchen tools! Keep reading →

Now, I basically never choose recipes based on what they lack (think: gluten free, sugar free, dairy free, fat free, joy free). Even when I spent a year making a concerted effort to lose fat, and had very little wiggle room in my meal plans for treats, I always elected to either go without, or to squeeze a tiny serving of the real deal of whatever treat I was hankering after into my day’s macros instead of going out of my way to make some diet version of it. Keep reading →