Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Get it Right spatulas

October 18, 2013 by Mary 8 Comments

Some time ago, the good folks at GIR sent me one of their spatulas to try out. I have so enjoyed using it but haven’t had time to write about it until now. This Get It Right spatula is totally made of one piece of seamless silicone, which makes it super easy to handle, plus they come in super bright nifty colors. They sent me a hot pink one.

I have this awful habit of leaving spatulas or other stirring equipment in the pot or skillet that I’m using them in. In the one cooking class I ever took at ICE (Institute of Culinary Education), the teacher yelled at me for doing this, and rightfully so. I know it’s not right! I think I do this because I am always rushing around, usually hungry and it’s late, trying to be a short order cook, plus I want to keep the stirring utensils separate from one another. Then, usually the handle will get hot while sitting in there and I’ll pick it up and low and behold, burn myself again!! I have many scars on my hands and lower arms from dumb moves such as this.
This spatula is great as a stirring and sauteing vegetables tool and, you’ll never get burnt even if you leave it in the pot. Here you can see me using it to make some sautéed organic red stemmed dandelion greens with garlic in olive oil. It looks great, right? This was the worst freaking vegetable dish I have made in a very long time. (You couldn’t chew them! I guess you have to braise them?) But, the stirring instrument was wonderful!

I have one caution about it. It is not flexible enough to really scrape a bowl of a luscious sauce. But as a cooking instrument, it works! And, I love the colors. A red one would be nice for LOVE, don’t you think?

French salt, Spanish saffron and truffles!!

August 2, 2013 by Mary Frances 15 Comments

I am SO lucky!! My friend Toni travels all over Europe with her work. We had dinner with her and her husband Bill, who are long time friends, this past week on the lower East side. She arrived at the restaurant carrying a shopping bag. You know I mainly use French salt when I cook. It is so expensive here and so inexpensive there. So sometime ago, I had asked her to pick up some when she was in France next, but I didn’t expect the other gifts!! She got me the bag of “everyday salt” and then the Fleur De Sel – a special finishing salt.

The truffles and saffron are from Spain. One of our designers, Carlota, is from Catalonia and she said this is the exact saffron that her mother uses and the truffle brand, her grandmother uses, and is actually from Catalonia! I can’t wait to use them!! Maybe tonight, the truffles on pasta?

Thank you Toni!!

In addition, I have recently become a member of The Daily Meal’s Culinary Content Network! I am so excited to be part of this community of recipe writers, restaurant reviewers, food bloggers, and photographers. There is one thing we all have in common–we love food! Explore this great network here: http://www.thedailymeal.com/holiday/culinary-content-network

Memorial Day Melange

May 26, 2013 by Mary Frances 14 Comments

It is Memorial Day weekend, the beginning of summer. It is 45 degrees with gale like winds here in upstate New York. It is way too windy for a bike ride, besides we’re all wearing winter coats.

My husband is about to build a fire, waiting for me to open the flue (my job as he somehow messes up the closure when he does it.) And oh no, we haven’t screwed up the environment?!? And why do we call Memorial Day a holiday? Okay, so it is a day off from work but really, we should all keep in mind what this day is about and remember all of those lost or maimed in the name of defending our country for freedom for all of us.

This week has been so hectic with the test kitchen tours and then the champagne breakfast on Friday, not to mention we had a dinner party Friday night (more on that later) and then came upstate yesterday, having dinner with our dear friends Margaret and Wayne. Margaret made a wonderful eggplant starter with spinach, pine nuts and cheddar cheese and a fantastic shrimp and chorizo paella. They had a fire too! Lovely evening!! The Friday morning champagne brunch was a wonderful place to meet all kinds of people in the food business, not just bloggers, hosted by XO – they own The Knot, The Nest and The Bump. I got to have further conversation with Anna Curran from Cookbook Create (they create custom cookbooks!) and learned more about The Daily Meal, who are the wonderful folks giving away the Kitchen Aid mixer! Meanwhile Kitchen Aid is really pumping up the design aspect of all their products. I just saw this ad today in the May issue of Elle Décor. (I am always dreaming of refurnishing my house.) That mixer would sure look great sitting on my countertop here in the country!

So I wanted to share with you some tidbits I learned on our kitchen tours. Did you know that there are 25,000 food bloggers in the United States alone? So we all have to support one another! Did you know that Bon Appetit tests their recipes 4 to 6 — and sometimes even 12 — times before publishing them? They really want to ensure success for the home cook.

Even for cooks with access to just basic ingredients, they want to know if that recipe will turn out for them in a good way. So nice of them! They prepared for us a wonderful ginger lime drink. You make a simple syrup with fresh ginger. Let it cool, add fresh limes and some lime juice along with seltzer or club soda and you have the most refreshing drink – for when summer does get here!

And then lastly, here’s me with Amanda Hesser from Food 52. It is her New York Times cookbook that my sons gave me, and Zach wrote in, that became the inspiration for starting this blog. It’s in the About section. She is looking at my LOVE card as I just told her the story of this blog. Photo courtesy of claywilliamsphoto.com

My new utensil caddy!

April 19, 2013 by Mary Frances 21 Comments

I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time – since my birthday in November. I know, I know, a very long time ago.

This was a birthday gift from my very good friend, Marie. Isn’t it just so great? I love it!! Marie was so excited to give it to me – of course she had it custom made for me and was disappointed they couldn’t fit Mary Frances (nine is their maximum letter amount) – but no matter. I was using extra pitchers to hold my utensils but they get narrower at the top so what they can hold is limited. This, besides being beautiful, holds a ton, as the mouth is the same circumference as the bottom. And of course, it always starts a conversation in my kitchen! LOVE it!

Aprons for sale!

January 18, 2013 by Mary Frances 6 Comments

Do you wear aprons? I do – all the time. I really don’t want to spend the time getting olive oil splatters out of my clothes. I also use the ends to dry my hands quickly and this one is extra long with room to do that. So I thought that maybe you’d like a LOVE-the secret ingredient apron too! It can remind us all to cook with LOVE! And with Valentine’s Day coming up, this could be the perfect little gift! It’s beautifully embroidered, 100% heavy-weight cotton twill fabric and of course, machine washable, with adjustable neck strap and two front pockets. Click on this link to order one now.

What is it??

October 10, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

Our wonderful friend, Carl, presented this gift to us at lunch last week. He was so excited! He was recently visiting Berlin and saw a kitchen shop there near the train station and knew he had to run in and see if he could find this for us.

Steve and I looked at one another. We were perplexed.

Certainly for him to think of us while he was vacationing in the Eastern Block was so generous of him but what the hell was this thing? And Carl was oh so very careful in taking it out of the bag and setting it on the table.

At our lunch together the last time, we had this big discussion on eggs! The variety of ways to cook them, how wonderful creamy and dreamy local farm fresh eggs taste these days and how not to have them crack when making hard or soft boiled eggs.

Well, this is an egg piercer!

When you unlock it by twisting it, a needle pops up. You place the raw egg on this baby and pierce a hole, to prevent it from cracking when boiling it.

Isn’t that cool?

I suppose, if you’re really a Martha Stewart or Sandra Lee, around Easter time, you could pierce both ends and blow out the eggs and paint and enamel them for eternity, or make Christmas ornaments, or whatever. Now I see people even hanging painted and colored eggs from trees at Easter!

So, my husband, Steve, makes breakfast for both of us during the week. I only do it on weekends. (Yes he is a sweetie.) So this is his tool. I think he’s getting used to it. He’s only broken one egg.