Football (American) championship season. Sports bars, beer, and spicy things that make you want to drink more beer. Darts, pool, loud conversation, an either ill-spent or well-spent youth, depending on your perspective. Once in my early twenties I happened to be in Buffalo, New York for a wedding of a dear friend. On our site-seeing [...]

“This isn’t your everyday pot roast,” my father declared as we sat down for dinner to enjoy the roast that he had been cooking all afternoon. No, indeed it isn’t. The sauce includes an entire bottle of bold red Zinfandel wine. The vegetables in the sauce are cooked until every ounce of flavor is extracted [...]

1 cup apricot preserves
1 lemon
4 teaspoons soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
Directions
1.
Place the preserves in a large microwaveable bowl. Microwave on high power for 30 seconds, or until melted. Grate 2 teaspoons rind from the lemon into the bowl. Cut the lemon in [...]

Sometimes dinner just needs to be shamelessly sloppy. Nachos are a good example. If you don’t pile them so high with beans and salsa and vegetables and olives and cheese and sour cream and guacamole that you need to eat them with a fork, you just aren’t trying.
It was that blueprint for nachos that served [...]

Nachos are a good example. If you don’t pile them so high with beans and salsa and vegetables and olives and cheese and sour cream and guacamole that you need to eat them with a fork, you just aren’t trying.
It was that blueprint for nachos that served as the inspiration for these over-the-top stuffed potato [...]

As obvious as this may seem, it’s an easy thing to forget. If you’re not careful, by the time you finish the planning, the cooking, the decorating, the greeting and the serving, your guests are leaving and you’re exhausted.
Keep it simple, keep it small and stick with foods that can be prepared ahead. There is [...]