Now that you’ve decided what to plant and where to plant, it’s time to build your beds! The most basic technique for creating a garden bed is double digging.  As the name implies, double dug beds are carefully turned with a garden shovel once over the whole surface.  Some peat moss and/or compost can be sprinkled on top and then the whole bed is dug again.  Each round of shoveling should be at least four [...]

Do you ever come home to an empty fridge but still want something delicious to eat? We recently returned from the Mid Atlantic coast. Without time for a trip to the grocery store, I wanted a simple healthy meal we could make from pantry ingredients. Knowing that we had plenty of home canned tomatoes in the larder, I invented this recipe for tomato soup and served it with toasted cheese. This tomato soup is made [...]

We just returned from a vacation to the Chesapeake Bay and surrounds.  There were so many things I wanted to write about on the road but we never had good enough coverage to upload photos. Pictures are worth the wait, right? On Monday we drove west out of Ohio and stopped for lunch at the pre-researched Union Cafe in Washington PA.  We made our way to Rockville MD by evening and enjoyed a swim in [...]

Jaime Oliver, British chef, TV star, and activist, is launching his Food Revolution here in the US.  Contrary to many reality show hosts, Oliver is not just a pretty face working for advertising dollars.  He has campaigned in the UK for years to improve the school food system and encourage from scratch cooking with and for children.  He recently won a TED prize with a powerful speech about food education for children. Alex and I [...]

April has five Thursdays, which means five Kids Cook classes!  Children aged 3 – 6 years can join me at Sprout Soup (4310 N High St) from 11:15 am – 12 pm.  Here are the topics for April: Thursday, April 1 – Butter Thursday, April 8 – Veggie Sushi Thursday, April 15 – Lettuce Thursday, April 22 – Earth Day Eats Thursday, April 29 – Mint Each Kids Cook class costs $4 per child.  We [...]

You may have read Devie the hound dog’s version of making sausage.  Here’s my version of the basics. I received the book Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman last Christmas.  Since then I experimented with making my own bacon, smoking various meats and cooking confit of all sorts.  Until recently, I had not attempted to make any sort of sausage. Sausage is the heart of charcuterie, whether it is fresh breakfast sausage or a fine aged peperone.  [...]

Usually I would post our week’s meal plan today.  Because we are leaving for a vacation to the Eastern shore of Virginia tomorrow, I have no mindful menu. That doesn’t mean I’m not planning, though! Eating on vacation, especially a driving vacation like ours, can be a string of fast food restaurants.  The salt and fat in fast food does nothing to keep us healthy and enjoying a trip. Besides, America has more to offer [...]