This past Saturday and Sunday were two of my favorite days. Not necessarily because of what happened, which was not all that much, but because they were my favorite types of days. A few errands, a little bit of exercise, quite a bit of cooking and a lot of reading. Lost in thought, serenaded by Frankie Valli, Simon & Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills & Nash. One of the recipes that I churned out was this one: Jamaican Jerk chicken drummies with a cool mango cilantro dipping sauce.

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It’s Father’s Day time again, and so naturally my dad has been on my mind. More than once in recent memory he’s popped into my subconscious in the wee small hours of the morning and thus stuck with me all day, which gets me thinking of all the memories from years past.  This will be our fifth Father’s Day without him and this time of year, part of me starts to pang a little bit more than normal. For him today, we’re making beer battered fried shrimp.

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Hello my friends. The weekend is over. The holidays are officially over as of tomorrow. Are you ready for reality to strike? I’m delaying it a bit, and this red chile adobo sauce is helping

I’m not at all. This weekend we finally saw the signs of the season here in Chicago with horrid slushy, cold, rainy, yucky and currently, snowy weather. Yesterday I had so many good intentions to go out and run errands, come home and cook up a storm, but after trudging through the yuck yesterday on my way home from yoga, I decided leaving the house was not in my best interest, and my errands got pushed until today. With no ingredients in the house with which to cook, I ended up taking down Christmas a little earlier than I had planned, but there was really nothing else for me to do. (more…)