FROM SCRATCH CLUB

Mother’s Day is the weekend (yep… you better rush and get that card for Mom right now!!). In my family we have a tradition, like many families, of doing brunch on Mother’s Day Sunday. My mom’s mom (my “Mamie”) is a mother to ten children, and many of my aunts, uncles and cousins get together [...]

My daughter Abby just turned 7 years old and she’s looking forward to celebrating with her friends at a party this weekend. She has multiple food allergies, some of which are life-threatening. I’m finalizing the snack and dessert menu and I thought I would share a bit about what I’ve learned about serving food at [...]

As I said around this time last year, Passover is my favorite holiday. It is like Thanksgiving on steroids;  Thanksgiving with four thousand years worth of family recipes and stories and traditions and ritual mandates.  It also has challenging food restrictions thrown in. The basic idea behind the food restrictions associated with Passover is that [...]

According to the Smithsonian, “French women traditionally have relied on subtle culinary cues to signal their amorous intentions. The July 1956 issue of the journal Western Folklore reported: “a young maid lets her swain know whether the answer is ‘yes’ or ‘no’ by what she feeds him on St. Valentine’s Day. It’s a custom that [...]

Valentine’s Day is a holiday of love, but also of CANDY! While you might immediately imagine a red, heart-shaped box of chocolates when thinking of Valentine’s Day, there is another candy that has also been capturing hearts. A favorite amongst school-aged children, the Conversation Heart has had a steady fan base over the years.  I [...]

Well..well….well. Hanukkah is upon us. Christmas is soon to follow then New Years. I don’t know about you but I feel like December has f-l-o-w-n by. Wizzed. Sprinted. Galloped. It will be 2012 in 9 days. Whoa. In the meantime, I’ve been frantically creating edible & non-edible gifts (Jillian’s lotion from the Ebook is AMAZING) [...]

{Grape Expectation} Holiday mode is in full effect. Tonight is the third night of Hanukkah and Christmas is this weekend. Or maybe you are more of a Winter Solstice person. And let’s not forget New Years Eve is next Saturday! Either way, you are probably going to get down with your bad self over the [...]

Hanukkah is here, and in our home that means my husband Jeff spends a few days making his perfect vegan latkes (sometimes called potato pancakes, and pronounced “laht-kuhs“). All traditional latkes contain shredded or ground potatoes. Many contain onions and eggs. They are fried in oil (cooking with oil is one of the things you [...]

My sister-in-law is a new vegan. I had a moment of disquiet about this over Thanksgiving, saying to her, “But what are we going to do about mashed potatoes?” We sub-divided them, of course, which was perfectly sensible. But my next question was even more important: what about dessert?!?!?! Thanksgiving without pie? Really? She made [...]

Some of my earliest memories are of my Jewish grandmother setting out a loaf of challah, along with a spread of white fish, cream cheese, lox and bagels.  She never made any of these foods herself, but challah still reminds me of her.  Recently I developed an interest in making challah bread myself.  Thinking about [...]

I like local food. I like to eat it, I like to read about it and I like to sell it. Every Saturday morning I am lucky enough to talk about and sell local vegetables for Michael Kilpatrick (Kilpatrick Family Farm) at the farmers market in Saratoga Springs. Working at the market is so much fun for me, [...]

For the holidays my grandmother would make a dish that was simply called Cheesy Potato Casserole. It’s pretty much exactly what you would find at a Midwestern church potluck. I absolutely adored it and my brother and I would beg for it whenever we had a family holiday meal together. As my grandmother got older, [...]

As the Holidays are upon us, cookie-making season is in full swing. My kids have a list of cookies they want to make {or rather, eat}, I have my own recipe list of goodies to try, and then of course there are the edible gifts.  At my house, there will be lots of cookie baking [...]

Every winter, I crave an icy glass of Bailey’s Irish Cream. Something about it is filling and comforting when the cold weather rolls in.  This year I decided heck, I can make my own butter, I want to try this!  A mason jar filled with this delicious concoction is sure to please almost anyone this [...]

Fudge is one of those treats that I usually reserve for the holidays. I’m not sure why, because it really is incredibly easy to make and SO delicious. Served alongside traditional holiday cookies, fudge is a welcome treat in my family. Wrapped in a box (check craft stores for a great assortment this time of year) with [...]