Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

You know... i love interesting food, but right now I am recovering from a major bout of tummy illness and frankly that picture isn't helping one bit. Oh, Lord deliver me from a mountain of sweetened milky red beans and custard.

Be back in a second.

I loved every second of that!

I'm a newbie to Houston, so Ike last year was exciting! We used our propane grill and ate everything in the freezer - from the gallons of organic blueberries, to the meat. Gearing up again for Hurricane season. Saving all my milk jugs for water and making sure the pantry is well stocked with easy quickly available food. (Though I REALLY hope it doesn't happen again.)
I have enough dried beans to carry us through almost any adventure.

I bought a soda club carbonator, and live on fizzy water - sometimes with lemon or lime, sometimes with a little juice. I love it. And I do love an occasional mexican coke, but I am over soda.

granita........yum.

I too am an indian dabbler... but I would really like a solid introduction to technique and spicing. So, yeah. Indian.

Yup! my husband is super super super allergic to poison ivy. He peeled a few Mangoes one night... didn't wash hands very well, and yes, he too had mango rash on his "nether regions." Had to get some steroids to calm the whole thing down.
However, he can EAT mangos. Just not peel them. I do that.

Yeah... my MIL is a cooking biohazard. She's actually a great cook - considering she is overcoming an old-school Polish cooking family - which to them meant boiling things to death then salting them within an inch of their lives.
What she does, however, is use ingredients in her pantry that date back to late 80's, early 90's. Every time I am there, I try to throw a few things away (including medicine) that is more than 5 years out of date.
Now that I have a daughter, she's almost 3, I watch everything that woman uses in the kitchen like a HAWK.

I have a lodge Dutch oven. I use it EVERY Day. I use tomatoes in it, I braise things for long long periods of time. I love it passionately. It was $40. I've been using it for 3 years non-stop, don't use soap, just wash it out really well with hot water. It's the best thing ever. EVER.

Yeah... if I indulge in a Coke - maybe once a month - I totally go for Mexican Coke. Now that I live in Houston, I can get it anywhere. I really do love it and really do notice a biiiig difference.

Only Annie's for me. The day I discovered their Goddess dressing, I never looked back. I won't eat anything else out of a bottle. Yum. I'll eat that stuff on anything.

I have never, never, never, allowed myself to cook with lard. Why? Because I get the feeling that once you go lard, you can NEVER go back.

Is anyone else a little "ewww" about the platinum pie plate? Talk about useless... and though covered in precious metal, looks like a pie plate. Though it is decidedly coy, it is not what I need in my kitchen.