Whenever I enjoy food that someone else has prepared, it's only natural I ask for the recipe. Sharing recipes is a kindness I think we all should offer each other. About 15 years ago, I was at a Fourth of July picnic in Gowrie, Iowa, at the Johns...
I leaned over and looked at my alarm clock. I plopped my head back on my pillow. I did not need to be awake at 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning. The previous evening, we had moved all the clocks back an hour to switch from Daylight Saving Time to Dayli...
Harvest is dragging on here in Central Iowa, and we've hit a pocket of decent weather to knock out the remaining corn that's standing. We've had hot days, cool days, rainy days and snowy days. There have been days that are slow-going and some lon...
"Can you say 'muy bellissimo'?" the participant said after taking a bite of the soup. I did my best to pronounce it exactly as he did. However, I wasn't getting the accent quite right. By the third try, I was kind of close, I think. He grinned, a...
The other day, I was sorting through some clothes that are too small for my kids. I found the small clothes in a dresser in a basement bedroom. I kind of forgot about this stockpile of clothes, which brought back memories I looked at a tiny pair ...
"What are you doing with this?" my husband asked, as he held up a plastic bag of fresh dill. I smiled sweetly and replied, "Thank you for finding that, dear." I am kidding. Trust me: My response was not sweet at all. I was upset with myself becau...
Some things touch our lives in more ways than we might imagine. Soy-based products are all around us. If you read a newspaper this morning, it may have been printed with soy ink. You may have had cereal with added soy protein or topped your cerea...
When I was growing up, a few food items always were in our refrigerator: milk, cheese, sandwich meat and a jar of some kind of homemade pickles. Whenever guests dropped in, something pickled appeared in a fancy glass serving dish. A piping hot ca...
"Be sure to lift the bean plants," I instructed as I picked string beans. "There are lots more beans under here." "I was going to let them plump up," my husband said. "I think most are ready to pick," I said as I flipped the plant and began pluck...
"Do you know what that is?" I asked. My intern Larissa and I were strolling through a grocery store gathering her ingredients. "That's a pitaya," she replied without hesitation. I kind of expected she would know because the fruit is common in Sou...
