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Finally, we have a touch of Fall here in New England. The color on the trees is starting to show. We've had a few brisk nights, almost touching the freezing mark. With Halloween just ten days away, memories of past celebrations floating in the back of my mind come forward. As children, my...

I have just spent a week in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The foliage was just starting to turn into a wonderful koliascope of colors. Unseasonably warm then while there, we are now getting back to the usual temperatures of October. The gardens are wilting down, the skins on the...

Some people take a 'shot' of ginger every day in the morning, claiming it kills all the bad things inside of them. While not exactly true, there are many health benefits to ginger. Ginger has been shown to slow the growth of pathogens like E. coli and Staph. Although still in the testing...

August is the month of birthday and anniversary celebrations in my family. Both children married in August, and each of their spouses has birthdays in that month. Add to that the children's aunt, it ends up being a month for party and family get-togethers. From the time the child is able to...

As the summer wanes and things are brought in from the garden, it is time to start making delicious things. The aromas coming from the kitchen make this a great time for the family to hang around. Most are willing to give a hand, but others just offer to test the finished products. Today I...

I've been spending the past few days in the kitchen, surrounded by canning jars, kettles, ingredients and just an awful mess. It has not been all good. Maybe I was rushed. Maybe I was careless. Maybe I just made bad decisions. My first try was with strawberries. I bought six pounds of...

Peaches are ripe, strawberries have been picked, watermelon is coming into season. With all this abundance, how do we use this bounty? We Put-By. An old fashioned term meaning we can, freeze, dehydrate and otherwise prepare for the coming winter, it is time to use our skills to make things...

After my trip into the baking world at age seven with a failed whoopee pie attempt, I kind of just gravitated to the baking world. I'm sure it was mostly because of my preference for something sweet at that age. I didn't get into cooking right away. But as my parents both worked, we children...

I attended a local fundraiser at the town VFW the other day. It was a meat and lobster raffle. The procedure was to purchase a packet of tickets and with that packet, you had chances on three different tables of prizes. The cost was $20, and in my eye, the entertainment was worth the fee...

Nosing around in blogs and forums today, I came across an interesting piece about eggs. Eggs are funny. In Europe, they do not refrigerate them. In the US, it is recommended that they do get refrigerated. That I knew, but how necessary is it. I think the bottom line about eggs is that s...

Breakfast I was munching down my breakfast this morning and thought some about the process of getting it from kitchen to the tummy. So much of what we do in there is now by rote. In putting it all together in my mind, I realized what a production had occurred to make a simple eastern omelette...

Back in the 11th century in Abyssinia now known as Ethiopia, man's first experiences with coffee occurred. .There are many legends about how coffee came to be used by the human race. The most popular is that a goat herder was tending his flock. After the goats ate a certain plant, they seemed...

We all get awesome wedding gifts. One of mine forty years ago was a Farberware coffee pot. It was an 8 cup perk and it cranked out wonderful coffee for a year or so. It met its' demise through Babcie, my mother-in-law. She was a devoted instant coffee drinker. So, the weekend that my parents...

I don't remember the first time my mother plopped me on the counter so I could help stir a batch of cookies. But I'm willing to bet that most everyone remembers their first unaccompanied foray into the kitchen. Mine came at age seven. Playing hookey from school (a sore throat or something...