Time for a fresh appetite

I love ringing in a new year.

There's something about fresh starts - new notebooks for the first day of school, a clean page on the calendar - that I find incredibly refreshing.

Sure, maybe another year is gone without us accomplishing all of the things - or anything - we thought we would when it started. We still carry those extra few pounds. Didn't manage to accrue that savings.

But that's the beauty of life. Things come up that we could never expect. Plans change. We figure out how to deal with it.

Besides, we must have accomplished something?

I learned my best lesson about short-term goals when I was the editor of the college newspaper. About halfway into my term I hadn't made a dent in my to do list. I got frustrated. My predecessor gave me a piece of advice.

Rip it up and start all over again.

I'm not one for just giving up, but I've definitely learned that circumstances change beyond our control. Problems come up. New people come into our lives, and others leave. At the end of the day a page on a calendar is just a page on a calendar. It does not define our successes or failures.

Maybe New Year's is just as much about leaving a lackluster year behind as it is starting a new one.

New Year's is usually a time for setting goals we hope to keep for the next twelve months. This year I'm taking a different approach. I'm not making any. I'm just going to pour some champagne, take it one day at a time and see where the new year takes me.

Hopefully somewhere yummy : )

Happy New Year!

Have a holly, jolly apron ...

I'll admit this one. It's kind of hard getting into the holiday spirit in Florida.

To state the obvious, there's no snow. A week or so ago the temperature hit 80. There are no fluffy green trees or deer running around or snowmen or anything else that smacks of Christmas.

How could a girl from one of the most wintry places in the Great White North not notice?

It hit me the first year I was living in Florida. I went through all of the motions of getting ready for the holidays - decorating the apartment, sending cards, baking cookies - but it still didn't feel like Christmas. I got bitter about it.

To make matters worse, that same year I spent the week before Christmas taking my turn answering calls from irate readers complaining about everything from the size of the print in the newspaper to a late delivery.

What a happy, jolly way to kick off my holiday.

But then my last day on the job before heading home to Buffalo, Santa brought me a little bit of Christmas magic. On Christmas Eve, the phone line flooded with calls from people wanting information about where to make donations of food and clothing, or where to send presents to U.S. soldiers.

Yes, Tiffany, the Christmas spirit does abound, even in the land of palm trees and surfer Santas.

Ever since then, I take it one year at a time, looking for the small and subtle ways to gear up for the holidays, often times the ones that don't require a whole lot of energy or planning.

Some years are easier than others, and this wasn't one of them. I didn't bother with the cookies or cards. Maybe spending the weeks before Christmas reporting on childhood hunger, homelessness and teen suicide dampers the holiday spirit. Maybe this was just a long and tough year for the whole country.

But, just as always, the holiday spirit eventually caught up with me.

It could have been seeing my Christmas presents all ready to pack sitting on the kitchen table. Or the anticipation of spending a quiet evening at home - something I love but hadn't done for a while - making a warm and comforting mushroom soup.

Or maybe it hit when I opened my kitchen cabinet and saw the little corner of poinsettia fabric.

My holiday apron.

My mom started making seasonal aprons a few years ago, something that stemmed from a general dissatisfaction with the selection available on the retail market. We have fall aprons, holiday aprons and summery aprons with bright floral colors, all with special tags sewn in the front with loving messages from mom.

I saw it and that Saturday night I was ready when the Christmas spirit came looking for me.

I cranked up the Christmas tunes, wrapped myself in holiday cheer and started cooking.

I've never been that fond of Paula Deen ...

... but this recipe for her hashbrown casserole got the better of me.

I found it earlier this week when I was thinking about having some people over for a holiday brunch. For some reason when I started contemplating hearty egg and sausage dishes, I gravitated to the Paula Deen cookbook.

I consulted with my copy of Paula Deen Celebrates, the first addition to my now growing collection of autographed cookbooks. The holiday brunch didn't pan out, but the hashbrown casserole sounded good, so I figured I'd make it for myself. (And various co-workers who I shared it with at work today. Feeding the bosses can never hurt ...)

But my Paual Deen story actually starts about eight years ago before I moved to Florida. Before Paula made it big.

My father and I were driving to Jacksonville, where I was spending my summer doing an internship at the newspaper. Along the way, we stopped in some southern state where my dad found a copy of her original Lady and Sons cookbook, all authentic and spiral bound like she had it done at Kinkos.

Later that summer my dad and some other family members stopped at the Lady and Sons restaurant on the way down to see me. My dad raved about the food. Pure southern cooking. As the story goes, he asked the waitress to give the chef his compliment.

"Well why don't you tell her yourself," the waitress told him. "She's sitting over there having dinner with her family."

Maybe this is where I got the foodie stalking from. My dad went over, shook Paula Deen's hand, got his picture taken with her and my brother and told her the food was delicious. She was sweet as pecan pie to him, and thus began my dad's Paula Deen fandom.

Not long after my dad's visit, as another story goes, the people from the Food Network stopped at the restaurant and they, too, were wowed by her cooking. The rest, as they say, is history.

Fast forward a few years to when I'm living in Sarasota. I saw ads that Paula Deen was coming to town to do a book signing right around the holidays. I thought that would make a great gift for my father.

The whole operation was quite strict. You needed to call and order your cookbook from the now defunct Sarasota News and Books, pick it up that evening (probably to ensure you bought it from them) and then wait in the line to see her.

There were probably about 400 people waiting in the line when we got there. Another 200 or so waited in a separate line for those who didn't get their cookbook far enough in advance, but could wait and see if she still had time to sign them.

The rules were rigid as we made our way into the store. No one was allowed in who wasn't getting a cookbook signed. Show your receipt. Open you book to the appropriate page. No pictures. No personal message. Don't bother asking. I felt a little bit like cattle being herded.

The line moved swiftly, basically giving you a quick walk past the table where she sat with her husband signing "Paula" assembly line style.

Despite the warning, I couldn't help but ask her to personalize it for my father.

"Hi Paula. My dad loves you. He met you at your restaurant a few years ago. Could you please personalize it for him?"

She didn't even answer. She just signed her name and slid it down the table and grabbed the next one. We snuck a friend of mine in the store to take a picture of me getting the book signed. The picture revealed Paula Deen giving me a nasty look as I plead with her.

I was a little disappointed, but thus began my dislike of Paula Deen. (Even though I do find some of her shows on the Food Network entertaining.)

Some of my friends have since been to her restaurant and say it's morphed into a totally different place then it as when my father met her. Apparently it's a multi-story, multi-hour wait to get in kind of place. And the food wasn't as good as they expected.

As far as the casserole goes, not so awful : )

Holiday cheer by way of 1,500 cupcakes

So there's this phenomenon every year at my place of employment. I call it the Holiday Cheer Epidemic, because that's exactly what our top boss asked for a few years ago to counter a rash of bad news in the paper. Holiday Cheer stories. The kind that people find uplifting.

It makes sense to some degree. The holidays move people to volunteer time, donate presents and otherwise do nice things for people who aren't as fortunate. That's a lot of what is going on in the community.

I'll be honest that some of these efforts have rubbed me the wrong way over the years, coming off as condescending or self-serving. Besides, people who need help need it all year long. Not just at Christmas.

And the irony of Holiday Cheer stories is that once you cut through the warmth they really aren't that cheery. They're really about people who are hungry, homeless or otherwise struggling to get by, and that can be tough to get across in a simple news story.

But over the years I've become less jaded and figured out a way to write Holiday Cheer stories to my liking. The solution has been to look for genuine people trying in the very simplest (AKA: not attention grabbing and splashy) ways to make the holidays a little more bearable for some people. Besides, why not cash in on this spirit of giving and generosity and inspire people to help out the children.

This week I found Chef Cindy.

I heard about Chef Cindy doing another Holiday Cheer story at one of the high schools. I wrote a story last week about how the year-round food pantry the school had started to help needy kids and their families was empty. They got cleaned out right before Thanksgiving. After the story ran, the school got an outpouring of support - food, clothes and over $4,000 to help families with things like utilities. One of the largest donations was a batch of food to feed 400 people from the area food bank.

As we were waiting for the food to arrive on Wednesday the lady from the food bank started casually telling me about a woman who made 1,500 cupcakes to send home with homeless and needy children for Christmas. I'm not sure she realized that's a heck of a lot of baking.

"Did you say 1,500?" I asked her, just as a point of clarification. Journalists like to be accurate.

She looked at me like I had just landed from Mars for questioning whether a single woman was really baking 1,500 cupcakes to distribute to poor children.

"Uh, huh," she replied. "1,500. They're going out Friday."

I had my notebook out and started doing some basic long division. That would be about 125 dozen cupcakes ... You could maybe fit four dozen in a standard oven at a time ... Baking time is about 25 to 30 minutes ...

I couldn't believe someone was actually doing this.

So I set out on my quest to write about the Cupcake Lady.

I went back to the office and pitched the story to my editors. They signed off, so I called the food bank and asked them if they could put me in contact with Chef Cindy. And then I did the thing most journalists hate. I waited.

A few hours went by before the lady from the food bank called me back and gave me Chef Cindy's number.

"She's a little," she paused. "Shy. But I think she'll talk to you since this is such a good story."

I called and left a message, waited about an hour and got no answer. Of course we had to try and get photos of her baking, and that meant we had to do it Thursday.

I think I let two hours pass before I walked down to the restaurant where she was alleged to be baking. It was closed, the dining room dark, but I could see a light on back in the kitchen.

"Do I go around the back and knock on the door?" I thought. "Would that be creepy?"

It's important to note this kind of determined reporting is usually reserved for big stories or tracking down bad guys. I still can't believe I put forth this much effort toward a story about cupcakes. Stories about baked goods just shouldn't be so challenging.

I opted not to stalk her through the back of the kitchen.

"I'm sure she'll call me back later." I thought.

I left the office and headed home. Around eight-o-clock it was bugging me I never heard from her. The chances of us getting any kind of photo in her kitchen were getting slimmer and slimmer.

I dialed the number I had saved in my phone as Cupcake Lady and to my surprise she answered.

"Hello," said an obviously frazzled voice on the other end. "This is Cindy."

"Hi," I started. "This is Tiffany, the reporter from the Herald-Tribune. I think the food bank told you I might be calling.

She gushed a sigh.

"Oh," she said, clearly regretting she picked up the phone.

She continued with a note of exasperation:

"I'm a little busy. I'm on my way to Sam's Club. I RAN OUT OF EGGS. I only have 500 cupcakes done. I have A THOUSAND I need to finish by Friday. I'm going to be up all night. I DON'T KNOW HOW I will ever finish."

For a moment I wished I could volunteer to help, but reporters don't really do that sort of thing. So instead I just asked if we could come hang out and get some photos of her baking.

"I'm not really very photogenic," she said. "I'm a mess. I'm covered in cake batter. And I can't really have you in my kitchen. I HAVE TO FINISH A THOUSAND CUPCAKES."

My attempts to sway her were useless. I agreed that we would just come get a picture of her when she dropped off the cupcakes Friday morning at the food bank.

It took most of the day Thursday to even get a time flushed out for when the big drop would happen. Then finally we got word: 8 a.m. Friday morning.

I barely get my butt to work before 10 a.m. most days, but for the Cupcake Lady, I'd get there early.

Shortly after the photographer and I arrived, the woman from the food bank came down to greet us with a shocked expression.

"She's gone," she said. "She must have come really early and just left the cupcakes. They were here when the first person got here."

"Sneaky," I thought, annoyed, but kind of admiring the Cupcake Lady for eluding us.

Anyway, as it always does, it all worked out in the end. I called Chef Cindy and, after laughing a little - probably for pulling one over on me - she did chat with me for a bit about why she took on this effort.

"It just bothered me so much," she said. "That some children go hungry. I can't solve their problems, but maybe I can make them happy."

These are the kind of stories I love, anytime of year. Normal, everyday people doing creative and extraordinary things to make a difference. Even a little one, especially for children.

But those are the stories that are also hardest to write. How do you take an incredible person, all their emotions and drive, and put them into words on paper?

We went to a school later and watched the principal and guidance counselor hand out the cupcakes and bags of food for the winter holidays to about 50 homeless and needy children.

Watching this sort of thing used to really upset me when I started covering schools seven years ago. It's hard to comprehend so many kids not having anything to eat for two weeks but a bag of beefaroni and canned veggies when some of us are so lucky. The TV reporter said she was ready to start crying. So did the lady from the food bank when we were at Booker High on Wednesday.

Even after so many stories and so many years covering schools, I still get choked up a little sometimes. But I guess you kind of get used to it after awhile. All you can do is use your talents to try to help them.

At some point the lead for my story just popped in my head, inspired by the ultimate of holiday cheesiness and drawing the parallel between Chef Cindy and Santa.

"She came in early Friday, leaving no trace of her visit but 1,500 cupcakes."

The whole time I worked on this I kept trying to wrap my mind around 1,500 cupcakes. Just how much is that? Well if you're curious, check out the sweet graphic on the story.

And Chef Cindy may have tried to dupe me, but clearly didn't get up early enough in the morning. Everyone reading the story would want to know what the Cupcake Lady looked like. As it turned out, we had a nice picture of her in our archives from a cooking demo she did a few years ago, so we were able to run that with the story (I don't think, by the way, Cindy was opposed to running her picture in the paper, I think she just didn't want to make a big deal about her part in the cupcake situation).

So as I said to our graphic artist in sheer fun when it was all done:

"Put that in your Kitchenaid and mix it."

Happy holidays!

Firehouse Throwdown

So I just happened to be watching Throwdown (Ha! Just happened. Like it was unusual for me to be watching Food Network).

Anyway ... the episode where Bobby Flay squares off against a firehouse chef to make chicken cacciatore is on. Seeing as that's one of my favorite Bobby Flay recipes I've tried, I figured it was prudent to blog about it.

This chicken cacciatore is full of flavor, with the jalapenos giving it a nice, spicy kick. The capers and balsamic (I use both) add a salty, Mediterranean flare. And red wine! How can you beat that flavor combination? I like to make mine with chicken thighs because I think the dark meat gives it more flavor.

Bobby Flay, by the way, lost this one. Apparently, the judges liked the other one because it was more traditional.

Not surprising.

"Bobby does stuff different from everybody," his competitor Keith Young said. "That's what being a chef is all about."

From Emeril's Kitchen

The 10-year-old girl behind me in line grew up watching Emeril with her mother. The two women forged an early bond watching his show on the Food Network.

The woman in front of me was a cancer survivor.
During her sickest times, she lay on bedrest watching Emeril whip up a root beer glaze for his pork chops. She'd send her husband to the store to pick up ingredients for the dish, but every time when he returned she realized she was too sick to get up and make it. He cooked for her.

"Damn," I thought still trying to come up with the perfect thing to say to this food icon. "I can't compete with that story."

Not everyone gets a second chance to do things in life, especially those things from which we get the most enjoyment. But I have been fortunate in many respects, and on Monday I got a second chance to meet Emeril.

I found out he would be signing more copies of the new cookbook in front of his restaurant at Universal's CityWalk at the same time I learned about the book signing in Brandon. At first I thought driving to Orlando on a weeknight would never work. But then I figured, why not make it happen? It would be kind of fun to eat in the restaurant while he was around. So I picked up a weekend shift to get an extra day off so that I could make the pilgrimage.

I spent the weeks beforehand strategizing the perfect time to stake out the restaurant (Lunch? Dinner? Before or after the book signing?) I called to see if he would only be signing the new book (Just the new one, the restaurant said). I studied the menu to pick out the perfect entree (It came down to a gametime decision between the rotisserie roasted duck and quail two ways). I saved my pennies, and then I waited.

Leaving my apartment, I decided on a whim to bring along my copy of From Emeril's Kitchen, the one with recipes from the restaurant. Who knew? Maybe he would stop by my table and sign it.

I arrived at CityWalk about an hour before my reservation and, just like I was in Brandon, was really surprised there weren't more people waiting. I figured people would line up hours in advance for the chance to have Emeril sign their cookbooks. But about halfway through the signing, there were maybe 40 people waiting, a steady line that kept moving.

I decided to ask whether they would let me through to have him sign my renegade cookbook. It was no problem. I hopped in the line in between the 10-year-old girl and the cancer survivor. After I heard their stories, I decided to keep mine simple.

I watched him smile warmly at the woman in front of me as she stood there, meeting him for the first time, telling him about her cancer.

"Well, my story's not as good as hers," I said when I walked up to the table. "But you did inspire me to cook."

He looked at me smiling, like he didn't know what to say to this cheesy line I'm sure he hears often, but was amused by my admission. So I did one of the things I do best. I filled the awkward silence with nonsense.

"So what should I get for dinner? The quail or the duck?"

Emeril's clearly not a sappy or sentimental guy, but likes to get right down to business. He looked up from the signing and the warm, gentile look kind of melted into one of real concentration.

"That's a really tough one," he said. "Those are both really great items."

He thought about it for awhile. Quite a while actually, without ever offering a recommendation. Perhaps trying to move the line along, the employee standing next to him suggested I get both. Emeril suggested I also consider the specials, one of which included a rack of lamb.

He finished signing my book and I said it was great to meet him (not acknowledging the fact it was the second time in a month). I'm pretty confident he didn't realize that.

"The pleasure was mine," he responded smiling. "I'll see you in there."

The restaurant was all decked out for the holidays, with arches wrapped with white Christmas lights and garland. Formally dressed VIPS (or investors) lingered around the bar and lobby sipping champagne like it was going out of style. I ended up scoring a seat right by the window.

When Emeril walked in the restaurant everyone clapped, but the chef hardly paid them any attention. He headed right for the kitchen, where he stayed for about an hour. Then he, looking kind of tired, made the rounds to all the tables, spending a few minutes chatting with the apparent VIPS. But still stopping briefly to ask how my banana cream pie was.

And that was it. Perhaps somewhat anticlimactic. He left the restaurant and I headed home. I was thrilled to get my favorite cookbook of his signed.

Oh and for the record, I went with the quail, served two ways actually. One stuffed with a shrimp and andouille sausage stuffing the other a quail breast. Served with baby carrots and wilted spinach.

It was all delicious.

Tis the season to be merry

So if you're wondering would could possibly be more enticing to me than cooking up a good meal in my kitchen, consider the following: FREE ... HOLIDAY ... WINE TASTING.

That's right, this year I've learned that swanky businesses and upscale restaurants like to promote themselves by inviting wine-loving people like me in for "holiday parties" that involve free food and dozens of wines to try. All of this in exchange for a toy that will be donated to a charity.

Part of me thinks this is a brilliant and altruistic thing for seemingly successful businesses to do, forfeiting profit from entrance fees for gifts for the children. But in reality I realize their ulterior motive is probably to get people all tipsy and enamored by their concern for the kids that they spend big wads of cash in their stores and restaurants (or, as always noted, on those perfect stocking stuffers - gift cards).

Either way, I consider this a win, win, win situation - for me, for the businesses, for the children.

On Thursday I'm planning on hitting up an event at Sarasota Architectural Salvage. The list of contributing restaurants includes local favs like The Colony, Michael's on East, Bijou Cafe and Libby's.

Then on Saturday I head over to Michael's on East for their holiday wine tasting.

As they say, tis the season to be jolly : )

Good thing I've got that big pot of soup to feed off of.

A big pot of yummy comfort for the holiday season

Tis the season to be busy, and lately my kitchen has been feeling it.

Not the cookie baking or turkey roasting. I head out of town for all of that. No, during the holidays my kitchen tends to get a little lonely.

Between all of the traveling, holiday parties, shopping, Nutcracker watching and various other festivities, I have little time to get behind the stove and try anything too adventurous.

But a girl has to eat, doesn't she?

So in lieu of some interesting and exotic menu, tonight I decided to whip up an old favorite - minestrone soup.

A few years ago I adapted a recipe that involves Italian sausage (really the heart of its yumminess). It may be a little off point for the blog (these days, most of it is). But it is delicious, comforting and filling. Oh, and incredibly easy. A pot of it will last me days and the rest freezes well so I'll have plenty to eat until I have time to cook something more interesting.

Oh and by the way, this is an extremely flexible dish if you want to adjust the flavors and spices to meet your tastes.

Without further ado ...

The Best Ever Minestrone Soup

2 tbsps. olive oil
5 links of hot Italian sausage
3 medium yellow onions, chopped
6 cloves of garlic chopped
5 carrots, chopped
5 celery stalks, chopped
2 zucchini, chopped
3 tbsps. dried thyme
3 bay leaves
salt
pepper
1 fourteen ounce can diced tomatoes
3 cans cannellini beans
1 bag spinach

What to do:

Heat olive oil in a pan. Remove casings of sausage, break into chunks and add to the pot. Cook until the sausage is done all the way through. Remove the sausage (leaving the oils) and put it on a paper towel-covered plate to drain.

Add onions, carrots, celery and zucchini to the pot and cook until soft. Add the spices and cook for a few more minutes. Then add the tomatoes.

Rinse and drain the three cans of beans and using an immersion blender puree about half of them with about two cups of water. Add the pureed beans and more water (as desired - depends how soupy or stewy you want your minestrone... I like mine more stewy). Bring to a boil.

Once the soup has boiled, add the sausage, the remaining beans and the spinach. Let simmer for a bit. The soup will get yummier the longer it sits! This is great with some fresh grated parmesan cheese on top!

Overindulgence

They say too much of anything isn't good for us.

I now believe that explains the death of my letter "N" on the keyboard.

(Which, by the way, my family came to the rescue again, hooking me up with a USB keyboard for my laptop so I can proceed with the blogging.)

And how ironic for this to happen right at the start of the season of overindulgence.

Parties. Cookies. Shopping. Family. Fun in general. All of the festivities and responsibilities that come with the holidays can get overwhelming and exhausting just thinking about them.

Right in the midst of all of this holiday splendor, I woke up this morning - my first day off since I got back from Thanksgiving - and immediately started thinking about blogging.

That's how it's been since I started this project. Every day off. Many evenings. Spending my time blogging.

That's not as carefree and simple as it sounds. I'm an obsessive personality. One blog post might turn into hours toiling to perfection. Then another idea pops into my head. I have to get it all down before I forget something. Before you know it, the morning or evening is gone, swallowed up by a computer screen.

If you've been following you've probably noticed I've done more writing and pontificating lately than cooking. One of the unintended results of the blog is that it has been a fun outlet for my writing, without the constrictions that come with doing it for a living. I'm enjoying it.

But all that time spent in front of a computer isn't relaxing. Piles of cooking magazines lay all over the apartment, my yoga mat seeing a little less use, old hobbies fallen victim of my new obsession.

I've become overindulgent.

This morning it dawned on me the whole point of the blog was to distract me from other things I tend to obsess over, like work and life in general.

So what does that mean when you've traded one obsession for another?

I guess that's when you rely on the universe for balance. I couldn't blog the week I went without the letter "N", so I did other things. Dusted off some of those cooking magazines and spent some time on the patio just thinking and listening to music. I reacquainted myself with life beyond blogging.

Now the letter "N" is back in my life. And, if you haven't noticed by now, I'm sitting here blogging.

Giving thanks for the letter "N," among other things

So I didn't make good on my promise to update with a new recipe last weekend. I'm terrible. But in the interest of wallowing in excuses, there are plenty of good ones.

For starters, Whole Foods didn't have the mushrooms I needed for the soup I planned to make from Poland. Then it occurred to me I was going out of town and wasn't going to be around to eat much of it anyway.

And then of course there were the holidays, those times of relaxation and joy that somehow suck so much energy from us. Why exactly is that? With the first of the spate looming in front of me - and since I shortened my weekend by agreeing to pick up a Sunday shift - I already felt drained just thinking of sitting for hours in an airport and decided Saturday would be best spent mentally bracing and physically detoxing for the upcoming indulgences ahead of me.

But aside from all of that, perhaps my best excuse of all is that the letter "n" on my keyboard is not working (I am at home now in Buffalo using my mom's computer).

Yes one morning I woke up and it was gone. Push the button, and nothing. I've been getting by until I have time to get it fixed copying and pasting the letter into e-mails and Facebook messages, but for some reason I can't paste things into this blog program.

Have you ever thought about how many times you use a simple letter in your daily communication?

I'm sure I'll be able to figure that one out. But for now, it's just there. Something to struggle with. Something to figure out, keeping me from doing things I enjoy. A nagging inconvenience.

Yesterday my 9-year-old cousin asked my mother why I just don't stay in Buffalo in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. She thought it seemed like a lot of trouble to have to fly back and forth in such a short time span, and didn't get why I can't just write my stories and e-mail them to my editors. Fair point, but when you're nine I guess it's hard to grasp only getting four weeks of vacation.

So how does all of this tie together? Perhaps it provides pause this Thanksgiving to reflect on all of the simple, little things in life we take for granted and that can be taken away from us in an instant.

The endless weeks of vacation we enjoyed as children thanks to an underachieving and heavily unionized American school system. The babkah kuchen they no longer sell at Wegman's. Judgment free zones. The carefree daily texts and phone calls from one of your best friends that just stop one morning. The relationships we have that change and morph as we do, whether or not we like it.

The letter "n" on the keyboard.

Yes of course there are the big things too, but day by day there are so many little things we rely on to get by. What happens when they disappear?

I guess things come and go over time and all we can do is try not to dwell on them. We can redirect our energy to the little things we still have that we rely on to make us happy before they're gone too and we miss them.

The new friends we have who bring us dinner and wine when we are having a bad week. A ticket home for the holidays. Hugs. Judgment free zones. Bourbon turkey and green bean casserole. Brunch with an old friend, one of your very favorites. Fitting into that dress you wore in high school.

A slice of pie, delivered by someone who might turn out to suck but at least for now is feeding your sweet tooth. A Thanksgiving buffet with free mimosas. The Whole Foods rosemary Christmas tree with little kitchen-themed Sur La Table ornaments.

And work out some of the other things. I'll figure that whole "n" situation when I get back next week, and get back on that mushroom soup from Poland.

In the meantime... Happy Thanksgiving!

Today, I am lazy

So after all of that excitement meeting Emeril and hitting the wine fest last week, this weekend I think I'm staying out of the kitchen. I need to relax and recharge my battery. Besides, I still have a ton of leftover etouffe from last week's recipe.

But I'll be ready to get back on my international expedition next weekend, so stay tuned ... Much excitement lies ahead of me.

Before Remy, he taught me anyone can cook

I had been trying to go to the Epcot Food and Wine Festival for about a month, but every weekend something kept me from it.

I put it off until the very last day, and as it got closer I was getting pretty excited. I studied the list of international food and wine offerings (field research for the blog, if you will) and marked all of the things I would indulge in. Part of the reason I wanted to go is because I had a park ticket that would expire at the end of the year, and we all know how I feel about wasting things.

There were few things that would have kept me from going that last day. One of them was Emeril Lagasse.

So what's with this obsession with Emeril, and several other celebrity chefs for that matter?

I guess it's sentimental.

I wrote in my inaugural blog post about how when I first set out on my own and moved to Florida I didn't have many friends and had to adjust to being an adult in my new surroundings. I missed my family and friends, and put a great deal of pressure on myself to succeed in the workplace. Pressure that caused incredible stress and anxiety.

At those times when I felt lonely or down I found solace in the kitchen.

But I never would have ended up there if it wasn't for personalities like Rachael Ray and Emeril. They inspired me into this world where an hour chopping vegetables is better than any other therapy. They taught me to cook, and helped me realize the satisfaction that comes with making a good meal for yourself or to share with others. Food brings people comfort, and over the years has helped connect me with some of the people I am now closest with.

They will probably never know, but their recipes helped me through some of the toughest times at work and in life. They helped me survive the hardest stories. I think it's even fair to give them credit for helping me get through the three consuming and stressful years spent working on the teacher abuse project, which hopefully some good came of. Them and my friends and family : )

They taught me how to manage my stress so I could keep going.

Not to mention, Emeril's food is amazing.

These were the kinds of things going through my mind, and yes I think there were even tears starting to well in my eyes, as I walked up to the table to see Emeril.

But how do you say all that to someone you don't even know without sounding like a mentally unstable stalker?

So I didn't say much at all. The whole experience was somewhat blurred by my excitement and nervousness. I do think I told him he is my culinary hero, and he kind of smiled.

For some reason, at least I'd like to think, he knew what I was thinking. Just like I hope my stories might make a difference in someone's life, or the barista at Starbucks takes satisfaction in pouring the perfect shot that helps get a doctor or teacher going in the morning, I think Emeril probably realizes the impact of his cooking.

So that's why I dropped everything I was doing to make two trips to Brandon to meet the guy.

Now, I just have to figure out what to do with that Disney ticket with a looming expiration. Perhaps I will have to go back to see Chef Remy.

Death of the gourmet foodie?

We pulled into the parking lot just 40 minutes before the book store would open to start handing out tickets.

My stomach twisted in knots the closer we got to the mall, expecting to find hundreds of people who camped out overnight to see my favorite culinary super star. If Bobby Flay could draw a line of over 500, Emeril must bring at least 1,000.

But as we pulled into the lot it became clear there were no more than 40 people standing outside the Books a Million, a relatively few loyal fans who showed up early to ensure a spot for the book signing.

Where were all the foodies?

The scant crowd became the talk among our small group as we waited for the store to open. Maybe the event wasn't well publicized. Maybe Emeril has lost popularity since Food Network dropped his show a few years ago.

Maybe most people - even the most hardcore foodies - just aren't that into cooking.

I love Emeril for so many reasons, not the least of which is that his food is amazing, all packed with bold and daring flavors that just perfectly meld together into incredibly sensuous culinary masterpieces. I've tried a number of his recipes - jambalaya, several gumbos, moussaka, ropa vieja, banana cream pie - and they were all amazing. But a word to the wise: Many will take you hours. Not a feat for the busy, broke or faint-hearted.

Emeril is one of the very best, and many of his recipes are intricate and precise, requiring a keen attention to detail.

But let's face it. How many people will stand there frying dozens of pieces of potato and eggplant just to get the base layers for your moussaka? Or stand by the counter blending a banana cream pie filling (or spend hundreds of dollars on the standing mixer)? Some of these gourmet recipes cost close to $100 to make, and after all we have been going through a recession.

This debate of gourmet versus Rachael Ray has been swirling around the food world this past month with the closure of the nation's oldest food publication. Gourmet magazine was one of the latest casualties of the advertising issues that are plaguing the whole print media industry. Its parent company decided it wasn't profitable to keep it going, especially when it stood in competition to its other food magazine, Bon Apetit.

Foodies all over the Internet have painted the two magazines as rivals in a sophistication versus superficial kind of battle. I've read both magazines over the years, and enjoyed them both. Although I will say I don't think anything jumped off the pages of Gourmet and commanded me to cook it. For whatever reason, it always made me want to sit back on the patio with a glass of wine and casually flip through its pages, not get into the kitchen. The most memorable article I ever read was an investigative piece on the chicken industry.

Something about Bon Apetit made me want to cook. Maybe it was snazzier pictures, or a more engaging layout. Maybe it was the monthly features about restaurants or new kitchen gadgets I found entertaining.

I can kind of understand why Gourmet went out of business. Maybe the recipes weren't any tougher. But there's a lot to be said for perception.

If there's any indication where demand in the food industry lies, just look at the shift in programming on the Food Network. Emeril and Mario Batali are long gone, replaced by home cooks that specialize in fast meals, cheap meals or those requiring minimal ingredients.

Call it the Rachael Ray phenomenon.

But at the same time, I'm not one to knock fast and easy, especially for people who don't know their way around the kitchen. I wasn't born into the cooking world with the skills to put together complex recipes. When I started cooking I pulled most of my recipes from Rachael Ray cookbooks and magazines. They were easy and undaunting, and wouldn't break my bank account with the grocery bill.

I moved up from there, and now I often have dinner parties with elaborate meals courtesy of From Emeril's Kitchen, the cookbook of his restaurant.

As much as many people will knock Rachael Ray - and the scores of people who have followed - there is a reason people like her. Call it lazy, but most people today want easy. They are pressed for time and money. There's a reason many people in this country are more inclined to pull up to a McDonald's then pull out a cookbook.

Even with the simplicity Rachael's style has brought to the food world, I recently saw an interview with Food Network officials who said it's not enough. They acknowledged that while the station has succeeded in drawing people in for entertainment purposes, it needs to find some way to inspire people to get into the kitchen.

Emeril's newest cookbook is called 20-40-60: Fresh Food Fast and gives home cooks instructions for preparing home cooked meals in that respective time period.

I'm sure some of the stuffier foodies will say he is a sell out, or dumbing his food down to make money or compete with other rising stars. But hey, don't we all? The whole world is changing. It's your choice if you want to come along.

As far as Emeril goes, I think it's great his new book might make him more accessible to the masses. His food is great and everyone should try it, even those who might not have hours of time or $100 to put toward making dinner.

Those few loyal hard core home cooks among us, we'll still have From Emeril's Kitchen as an option.

Food, friends and fun

When I'm not stalking celebrity chefs, I love a good food and wine festival. There's nothing like paying a somewhat exorbitant amount of money to then turn around and gorge yourself with food and vino. It's like a dare. Oh, you don't think I can eat $60 worth of food and wine in three hours? Watch me.

And I did on Saturday, but with all of this talk of Emeril haven't had time to post my update.

My lady friends and I headed out for the eighth annual Suncoast Food and Wine Fest at the Lakewood Ranch polo grounds. Despite the high price tag, I enjoy this event every year. It can get a little overwhelming - there are over 1,000 people and 300 kinds of winds - but the key is to just go enjoy being outside and being in good company.

I will admit, for the most part, that the food this year seemed fairly lackluster. Understandably, these restaurants are cooking for a mass crowd and have to be ready to man a three hour rush. I remember more luxurious dishes in past years, and wonder if some places scaled back because of the recession.

A friend of wine suggested I post some of my impressions on the blog, so without further ado ...

Best of show

Every year I've been to the fest, hands down, Tommy Bahama has the best food. It makes me wonder why I've never gone to eat there. They always have ribs that just fall off the bone and year after year are consistently memorable. The restaurant menu says that its a blackberry brandy sauce. They also served some sort of pineapple cake and probably the best thing at the festival, a creamy crab bisque that is just so smooth with a touch of sweetness that comes from sherry.

Perhaps the dark horse of the event was the lobster ravioli from Let's Eat!, one of those places where you go to make masses of dinner and bring it home to freeze it. My friends liked the steak sandwiches from Ruth's Chris. I, of course, enjoyed the little shredded pork sandwiches that Derek's was serving.

Can't believe I ate that

Just try to guess where the worst thing we all ate at the festival came from.

I'll start by saying it was a fairly small scallop served over a bed of carrot slaw and absolutely doused in some sort of dark soy sauce. As soon as the scallop hit your tongue you were hit by this overwhelming taste of salt, like eating a salt lick. If your taste buds survived the shock you could detect an extremely fishy taste that followed, which made me think the scallops were poor quality and I wondered if they over seasoned them on purpose to try and cover up the inferior seafood. The carrot slaw was no better. So where did this not-so-tasty delicacy come from? That's right. The elite Ritz Carlton Members Club. If they serve that in their restaurant, I guess you don't always get what you pay for.

There was another restaurant, whose name I can't remember, that served an etouffee with shrimp so soft that when I picked up the shell of mine the meat, literally, crumbled off. Yuck!

The thing I hate about big events like this is that there are so many wines, and not many of them are too memorable, that it's hard to find anything too exiting. It's definitely better as a social event to go relax with friends and enjoy the weather.

We were having so much fun, I started revving everyone up for the other big Sarasota food and wine fest, Forks and Corks, that they've done for the past two years in the spring at the Ringling. The big downside: spring in Florida is pretty frickin hot. Not the kind of weather you want to eat copious amounts of food in.

But out of curiosity I checked the event's web site Sunday to see if they set a date yet. It brought a smile to my face. They moved it up to January. The weather will be perfect : )

In case you were wondering ...

... that would be the amazing banana cream pie on the left. If you ever eat at one of Emeril's restaurants you HAVE TO try it. The other one was some sort of almond croissant bread pudding, also delicious.

In honor of Emeril

Well there was obviously just one way to celebrate meeting Emeril, getting my cookbook signed and receiving some long awaited banana cream pie advice.

That's right. Christening the cookbook.

The new cookbook is 20-40-60: Fresh Food Fast. The idea is to cook homemade meals in that respective timeframe.

I felt the shrimp etouffee would be an appropriate tribute to my culinary hero. But I did kick the recipe in the cookbook up a notch, adding in about a cup of white wine with the chicken broth and about six links of andouille sausage.

The spontaneous moment in which I met Emeril Lagasse

I came back to the office after an assignment Friday afternoon ready to start the weekend. I was so sick of covering the swine flu. I never liked it in the first place. I was more concerned about my big plans for the weekend than writing, yet another, mediocre swine flu story.

The plan was to hit the Suncoast Food and Winefestival Saturday with some friends and then head over to Epcot for the last day of their annual food and wine event on Sunday. In between would be plenty of time for relaxing and working out to burn off all of those calories.

Then a co-worker headed over to my cubicle and changed everything.

He handed me a copy of the St. Pete Times entertainment section.

"I don't know if you know about this," he said.

Staring up at me was a picture of the legendary Emeril Lagasse - my own personal culinary hero - in a field of fresh greens beside an announcement that he would be signing cookbooks about 40 minutes away on Sunday.

I was, seriously, speechless.

I later apologized to Ron for my lackluster and unenthusiastic reaction. I think I was just numb with some sort of disbelief. Every so often I stalk the Internet looking for appearances by my favorite food celebrities, and Emeril never seems to do many. Was it really possible that he was going to be just 40 minutes away at some random mall in Brandon?

My friend Cathy and I then found ourselves driving up Interstate 75 at 7:30 Saturday morning to secure our spot in line. The Books a Million would start giving out numbers when they opened at 9 a.m. and we wanted to make sure we'd get one. We got there about 40 minutes before the store opened and secured spots in the high sixties, meaning not only would we definitely get our books signed, Emeril would probably still be pretty fresh when we met him.

And then, we waited.

By the time Sunday morning rolled around I was surprised I wasn't more excited. When Bobby Flay came to Syracuse, I couldn't sleep the night before. And he's a fairly new obsession. In fact, I never used to like him.

Emeril has always been my favorite, and his food really ignited my passion for cooking.

I think I was just in disbelief. I thought it was too good to be true and braced myself for the possibility he would cancel at the last minute.

At one point Sunday morning it dawned on me that I didn't know what I would say to him. So many wonderful recipes I've tried. So many memorable dishes at his restaurant. So many stories from so many years of admiration of him. What could I say in a brief moment?

But given that Bobby Flay barely said two words to me and Paula Deen gave me a dirty look, I figured there wouldn't be much time for chit chat.

At about 12:30 p.m. Sunday, Cathy and I were back on the road to the mall, where we found our prime spot in line for the signing.

Once it started it all went so fast. The line moved and we moved with it.

At some point Cathy told me something she was going to say to Emeril. I looked at her and said: "You know there probably won't be a lot of time to talk to him."

"I know," she responded. "I'm just going to tell him real quick while he's signing."

It made me think I should have something in mind to say, but how can I convey all of my love for Emeril's food without looking like a total idiot? I decided I would just tell him I tried to make his amazing banana cream pie, and that it did not come out as good as his.

So that's exactly what I did as I approached him wearing his chef's uniform at the table.

He kind of let out a gush of air and looked up and immediately started advising me on my baking.

"You've got to really whip it. Whip it real good. Just keep whipping and whipping until it stiffens."

(Any sexual innuendo or reference to that tacky song was totally lost on me at this point. I was so nervous. Practically shaking, and really could not believe Emeril was advising me on his banana cream pie recipe.)

"Oh, I'll have to try that," I said politely.

He looked down to sign the book then stopped and looked up again.

"That's a tough one. A really tough one. Good for you for trying. Keep trying and you'll get it."

And that was it. I walked away totally euphoric toward my friend Cathy and barely heard her asking me, puzzled realizing it was too late, if I wanted to smile for a picture. I was so wrapped up in this whole banana cream pie situation that I forgot to look up and smile for a photo.

How amazing though? Emeril was just like he is on tv. The voice, the mannerisms, everything. He was so incredibly nice (although I joked we should wait until the people at the end of the line went through and see how he was holding up by then).

As we walked out we swapped Emeril stories with this girl who was in line with us. She said she went up to the table and told Emeril that she can't cook.

He told her that couldn't be true, and - pointing to the cookbook - said it all starts here and advised her to go home and get started.

More food, more wine

Tomorrow at this time I will be sippin and strolling at the annual Suncoast Winefestival. What a great way to count down the last few hours of the workweek!

Along with literally hundreds of wines, some of the highlights of this event can be found at the three dozen restaurants that participate - many of which are too expensive for me to normally eat at.

In all, it's one of my favorite things to do all year. You can buy tickets or check out more information about the festival here.

The joy of a well-stocked spice cabinet

Some of my friends and I recently had a conversation about the cost effectiveness of cooking. There is a prevalent belief out there that cooking at home saves you oodles of money. Yes and no.

The major expense comes in the upstart costs of stocking your kitchen cabinets, especially when you have a palette for exotic dishes from dozens of different ethnic styles.

There is a distinct satisfaction, however, when you start accumulating so many of these ingredients - namely spices - that you have them on hand and don't have to be buying new ones with every recipe. That's when your grocery bills really start to plummet.

Even just two months into this little game, I am finding that I have built myself a sturdy arsenal of spices and am getting to the point I don't need to buy any. Take, for example, the pho I made this week. I had most of the spices I needed, along with the onions, garlic and some other veggies. I ended up spending just $25 at the grocery store - most of that on meat - and will likely get five days worth of dinners.

Now that's what I call cost efficient.

Appreciation

One of the things about cooking is that it really helps you appreciate the art of coming up with a good recipe.

Take, for example, cooking something out of From Emeril's Kitchen, which features recipes from his restaurants. Most of the recipes are extremely nuanced and complex. Not difficult, per say. Just extremely detailed, right down to making a veal stock for the Creole Meuniere Base that goes with a number of recipes.

Same goes for Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill cookbook. One recipe for a habanero duck pancake requires three different sauces, at least one of which requires you to make a completely different sauce. Oh. And the duck recipe also calls for chicken stock. But no worries. The recipes for all of these sauces and stocks are in the cookbook.

To think these guys have people doing this every day at their restaurants.

I have had several moments of zen appreciation preparing some of the recipes for this blog, particularly when it comes to the detail that goes into working with certain ingredients. The pho was definitely an example of this.

I mean, come on. Simmering a broth for 10 hours? Who ever thought of that?

There were a few things with the pho recipe I found suspect, so while I was waiting for the broth to finish I did some research. It seemed as far as basic technique goes, and ingredients for the most part, Emeril was right on.

The big thing that kept tripping me up was the accumulation of what seemed to be copious amounts of fat in the broth, especially after I put it in the fridge. A thick, jelly-like substance layered across the top of it.

It seemed like my takeout from Vietnamese restaurants had done the same thing, but it still bothered me. I thought maybe using the short ribs was a bad idea. Other recipes I found suggested ox tail, which might have been leaner. I had also skipped draining the broth through the cheese clothe the first night, so I reheated it to do this and that did seem to skim some of the stuff out of it.

Some more research indicated that there might not be anything wrong with my broth. Apparently the gelatin-like substance is not actually fat, but collagen from the bones you boil. That made sense. Some Vietnamese people will let their pho broth sit over night and then scrape the layer off the top before serving. Others apparently keep some of it on hand to add in extra for flavor.

Either way, at some point there was clearly a lot of thought put into this issue, which I can appreciate.

Happy days are here again ...

Call it Christmas, just two months early. This past week I came in official receipt of my tickets for two upcoming food fests - the Suncoast Food and Wine Festival in Lakewood Ranch and the South Beach Food and Wine Festival in February in Miami.

As mentioned before, I've been wanting to go to the South Beach fest for years, largely because it involves all of my favorite Food Network personalities.

Although it can't boast the likes of Emeril, Bobby or Rachael, the Lakewood Ranch festival is exciting in its own right. For $60, I get to eat and drink as much as I want, with much of the food coming from big ticket restaurants I can't normally afford to go to. Even better is that Starbucks is usually on hand giving away packages of their wrapped biscotti and cookies. I can easily find ways to get the most of my admission!

The worst thing I ever ate...

... or rather drank.

But who knew something that tasted so bad could make you feel so good?

I was feeling a bit under the weather all week, like I was coming down with a little cold or something (I ruled out H1N1, despite my constant interaction with small children). It didn't help that most mornings I woke up to a sky of thick fog and stifling humidity. Just the kind of weather where it seems the only place to be is under it.

It must have been pretty obvious I was off my game because the principal at the elementary school I visited Thursday asked if I was feeling OK. I told her I felt like I was coming down with something.

After giving me the horrified "I can't believe you came to my school, already a cesspool of germs, when you think you might be carrying something" look, she immediately suggested I try this natural herbal supplement.

"I swear by it for my family" she told me. "You will feel a million times better."

The one caveat ...

"It tastes NASTY," she said, much emphasis on the nasty. "But just choke it down, and I swear you will feel better."

Her stellar sales pitch didn't quite convince me to run over to Whole Foods and buy some. I stuck with my Yogi cold defense tea. But when I woke up Friday morning with a terrible sinus headache and all congested I became slightly desperate.

It's called Buried Treasure and it's basically a liquid puree of all sorts of herbs and plants that are supposed to be good for your immune system.

I have never tasted anything so awful. I can't quite put my finger on what exactly it tastes like, probably because I've never tasted anything like it. But I believe it would probably be similar to eating fish sauce, which also smells awful and is made of decomposed fish.

The directions on the bottle suggested mixing it with "your favorite juice." But I didn't see any sense ruining a perfectly good beverage. I thought if I mixed a few tablespoons in a glass of water that it would dilute the flavor and I could just sip it. Um yeah. That didn't really work out for me.

I probably would have just given up and succumbed to whatever virus was looming in my system if I hadn't spent about $25 on the bottle.

It's also important to note I have terrible gag reflexes, which made this experience all the more interesting. I finally gained a full understanding of the phrase "choke it down."

I realized the only way I would be able to get this little "treasure" down was to dilute it with some water and shoot it. At some point I became smart enough to plug my nose so I couldn't taste it. Even though I couldn't taste it, if I thought about what I was drinking I started to instinctively cough it up. So the only way I could make this work was to plug my nose, close my eyes and think about anything else.

(My editor who I shared some with, on the other hand, sucked it down like a champ. But he does occasionally go on this all sauerkraut juice diet ...)

So was it worth all this anguish? Heck yes. I've never felt such immediate relief to anything. Not only did I feel better, I felt great. No sign of a sniffling nose, or sinus headache.

Perhaps I should make it my next mission to come up with some sort of concoction to just make it taste better.

Where does all that food go?

Several people have asked me a really good question: Where does all that food go once you cook it?

The question is really two-fold. Sometimes, the person inquiring wants to know how I seem to cook and eat so much, without it going right to my hips or my stomach. The answer to that one is about five workouts a week, 40 to 60 minutes each, on the elliptic. On top of that, I try to get in an intensive yoga session once a week and I've recently taken to swimming.

The other way that question comes up is from people wanting to know what am I LITERALLY doing with all that food I'm cooking. My friend Sarah just asked me that question, and when I thought about my efforts to get rid of it found it kind of amusing.

There have been numerous dinner parties, and then leftover dinner parties for the people who could not make it the first round. This is when I shove copious amounts of food in my guests' faces, and then send them off with take-home containers.

Some people don't even have to show up at my place. I bring the food to them, especially those I know to be regular blog followers. This girl Kat I work with got four Tupperware containers from the Middle Eastern Adventure.

Sometimes, as the case with the leftover brownies and tapioca pudding from the Iron Chef party, I just bring it to work and walk around aimlessly looking for people until someone will take it.

A lot of it I bring to work for lunch. In fact, there have been several fairly elaborate picnics with co-workers out on the lido deck at the office.

Part of the fun of this has been sharing. There's nothing like making food for people you love (or at least interact with) and watching them enjoy it. Truth of the matter is, not enough people stop to really appreciate their food. In the age when everything has become super sized and Mc-whatevered, if I can spread some joy with homemade tapioca or ropa vieja, then I'm a happy camper. It gives me satisfaction.

What can't be eaten or peddled right away gets frozen. It's in the cue for those weekends when the cold front moves through and you don't feel like doing anything : ) And now that she's asked, maybe I need to figure out some way to start shipping frozen goods to Sarah ...

p.s. ... on my letter to Guy Fieri

p.s. - Now that I've actually seen the show in Buffalo, I found it incredibly amusing that you introduced a segment of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" from East Amherst, NY. This place has got to have one of the highest property tax bases in upstate NY, and it seems kind of a juxtaposition that there would be anything divish here.

Second, next time you're anywhere near Buffalo, PLEASE consult with me. I didn't think any of the items at Grover's looked appealing. There's probably a reason I've never been there. And to think you were probably within a mile of the suburban location of Jim's Steakout, one of my favorite places to go for late night take out when I'm home. The steak hoagie pairs greatly with Spanish vino.

Anyway, let me help you out next time. That's what friends are for!

p.p.s. - There's a reason it's the people who are "this big" (meaning skinny and little) who eat two of the giant cheeseburgers. It's called bulimia.

Off to SoBe the wizards ... the wonderful wizards of food!

I watched the countdown tick off the minutes, right until midnight this morning.

That's when tickets for the 2010 South Beach Food and Wine Festival went on sale. I've been shut out in years past, and this year I wasn't going to miss it.

Bobby Flay wrapped up his Throwdown as midnight struck and the magical virtual box office opened. Within six minutes I had in my possession (electronically at least) a coveted ticket to the Grand Tasting.

I can imagine it now. Me, on the sandy, white beach tasting the finest of South Florida epicurean fare and rubbing elbows with the likes of Rachael, Bobby and Emeril.

OK, I know it won't QUITE be like that. But the beach isn't going anywhere, and the food will likely be more incredible than I could ever imagine. If I happen to catch a glimpse of one of my favorite stars, it will be all the more exciting.

So yeah, maybe I'm being melodramatic, but this is really exciting - a somewhat nervous excitement - for me. I've been wanting to go to the SoBe fest for years, and finally it's going to happen.

Part of the angst comes from the fact that taxes and all this set me back some cash. But talking to one of my friends in the office today - after she invited me to her son's school International Festival/fund raiser - I realized that times like these when I can somewhat guiltlessly drop money on something like that for myself could be limited.

I might as well take advantage of the opportunity.

Dear Guy Fieri ...

... I wanted to take the time to thank you for visiting Buffalo and bringing some attention to this often neglected city.

I have to say, I was not a big fan of Tailgate Warriors. But I hate football so maybe that's not really fair of me. I do appreciate that you did not, like, pretend to be in a blizzard like Anthony Bourdain did, right before claiming that featuring a chicken wing on the show would be cliche.

Either way, I am hopeful that the episodes for Diners, Drive-ins and Dives that start tonight at 10 p.m. on Food Network will be much better. It's rumored that tonight you will be in my old hood, at Grover's on Transit.

An age of responsibility

Sometimes, being an adult is just no fun.

I'm not even talking about having to get up and go to work and earn a living. I actually like that part. I think it's better than school. There's no homework.

I'm talking about all of the things you have to do that interfere with what it is you REALLY want to be doing. The things you have no choice about. To me the epitome of un-fun adult things is buying toilet paper. You have to have it, you have to spend money on it. But what for? Nothing fun. It serves its routine purpose, then gets flushed down the toilet. Money that once in your life would have been spent on something much more enjoyable because other people bought your toilet paper for you.

I guess there's a certain degree of denial in the fact that I have a tendency to put off any of these adult things if I can help it. For years, there were little pockets of my apartment that went unkempt, as I just closed the doors of closets and the laundry room pretending like there wasn't a mess behind them.

But for some reason, Friday turned out to be a day of reckoning.

I've been driving around for a few weeks suspecting that my car needed new tires. It was starting to do that vibrating thing whenever I went above 60 on the Interstate. I'm not car savvy enough to just look at the tires and evaluate the treading.

I finally brought myself to take the car in for an "oil change" Friday morning. This is my general strategy in car maintenance. To take my car in and hope that if there's something wrong with it they will tell me. I was not surprised when the guy called me about the tires.

"I don't know if you're aware," he said. "But the treading is totally gone on your two front tires.

"Oh," I said trying to sound shocked. "Really?"

I told him to go ahead and replace them.

In the spirit of this coming to terms with my adult responsibility, I decided to spend the better part of my Friday night tackling another area of avoidance - my oven.

Let's just say there was a small pool of something that's been accumulating there for God knows how long. I had no idea what it was (it could have been any great number of things) or how long it had been there. But I've been telling myself that it's an oven, and ovens are meant to get dirty. I figured there was no harm in just leaving it for a little bit longer.

Then a few weeks ago my friend Melissa hurled me into reality when she went to heat some pita bread in the oven at the Iron Chef part.

"Um, Tiffany... I have to tell you something," she said. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm really worried about this oven. There's something that looks like grease pooled up on the bottom. It's probably a fire hazard."

"Oh," I responded, trying to sound like this was a news flash. "Really?"

Thus began the party conversation about whether I a) had a fire extinguisher and b) knew how to use my fire extinguisher.

After Melissa brought it up, I started to get paranoid. Yes, it must really be "that bad" if other people were starting to notice. I've been petrified to use my oven. One time I tried it started smoking.

So I vowed that this week I would take care of it once and for all. On Friday, I busted out the kitchen cleaner stuff that is "tough on grease" - I probably went through half a bottle - and the brill pads - went through three of those. At one point I discovered that the mess was caked on there so bad that it was more effective to use a butter knife to kind of scrape it up. Once I got started the obsessive compulsive in me kicked in and I couldn't stop until I got every last bit off.

(I'll take the time here to note I realize this is utterly irresponsible, my mother is probably having a heart attack and I suspect the oven will get added to the list of things that will be inspected on all future visits).

For good measure, I even cleaned the stove and under the burners while I was at it.

I guess the moral of the story is that some things in life need to just be dealt with. Ignoring problems or bad situations will only make them worse, and before you know it you're on the side of the road because your untreaded tire blew out or emblazoned in some sort of kitchen fire. I could have just cleaned up whatever it was in the oven when I spilled it, and it would have been less of a problem.

But now, it's over. I have a nice clean oven that I can cook in.

Now, the homework: to stay on it.

P.S. - I got about halfway through this oven-cleaning project before I finally dipped into a glass of wine. The wine stayed pretty far away from the stove and the grease mess (I know the photo makes it look like even more of a fire hazard). But for a quick photo, it wasn't a problem.

Everything but the kitchen sink

So I'm pretty obsessive about not wasting food, and that's become especially important in these days of marathon cooking. Prepared dishes I freeze, take to work for lunch or pawn off on friends. But then there are always an assortment of leftover ingredients.

Thus the theme of the weekend: cleaning out the fridge. I posted the egg frittata situation earlier today. I also whipped up some tomato sauce and decided to reinvent the filling from the chile rellenos I made for the Iron Chef party into a quesadilla. That's become one of the most fun parts about cooking for me. Getting creative and figuring out what to do with the leftovers.

One sure fire way to maximize the usage on leftover veggies is to make a soup out of them. I made this one with all things in my fridge or freezer, the highlights of which include fresh herbs, white wine and prosciutto. The beauty of soup is that's all it really is, a mish mosh of ingredients that meld together.

So here's what I came up with. May it inspire you to create your own one pot dish out of your own extra ingredients. The basic formula is meat, veggies, herbs, wine and broth. The message is to get creative and not waste anything! And I'll be ready to start restocking my fridge with all sorts of fun ingredients from my international adventures some time this week : )

Ingredients:

2 tbsps. Olive oil

About a half pound of prosciutto in chunks

5 turnips, chopped

About 2 cups of carrots chopped

About 2 cups celery chopped

1 zucchini chopped

About 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

About one half cabbage, chopped

About two cups white wine

2 tbsps. minced garlic

Four bay leaves

About 3 tbsps. fresh thyme

About 3 tbsps. fresh rosemary

Fresh ground pepper

About four cups of beef broth

2 cans cannellini beans rinsed

What to do:

Heat olive oil in soup pot and then add prosciutto. Let cook a few minutes. Then start adding the veggies one at a time in the order given (hardest to softest). Give the harder veggies a few minutes to cook before adding the next (I use this time for chopping). As the veggies cook, make sure to keep them somewhat moist. Gradually add the white wine in to make sure it doesn't get too dry.

Add the herbs and garlic and half of the beans and mix well. Puree the other half of the beans with about one cup of water and add to the pot with the beef broth. Bring to a boil and then let simmer until ready to eat. The longer it simmers the yummier it will be.

Mimosa of the week

At some point (probably during a sale) I decided to step out of my juice smoothie comfort zone and try the Bolthouse Farms Berry Boost variety.

It's been in the back of my fridge going undrunk, usually passed up for my usual fav Amazing Mango. No more. I decided to spike it with some Spanish cava to make a mimosa for this weekend's clean out the fridge project. I have to say, I think I'm on to something.

Baked eggs with mushroom and rosemary

Today's cooking is being inspired by the need to clean out my fridge and freezer. I've really taken to brunch, and ate all of the quiche I made and froze the other weekend. So I decided to see what happens making an egg frittata of sorts with a container of creme fraiche I had in there.

Along with the ingredients in my fridge, the recipe was somewhat inspired by the Next Food Network Star Melissa d'Arabian, who did a baked egg dish during one of the challenges. The result is fluffy yumminess. She told the judges that she baked it because she likes to cook with her little girls and they aren't old enough to use the stove yet. I just thought it looked delicious.

In mine, the creme fraiche takes the place of the cream or milk you might use in any other egg dish.

Ingredients:

2 tbsps. olive oil

2 tbsps. minced garlic

1 package mini portobello mushrooms, chopped

3 tbsps. fresh rosemary, chopped

salt

pepper

6 eggs

1 container creme fraiche (about 7 oz.)

1 tbsp. dijon mustard

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 375.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the minced garlic and let cook for a few minutes. Add the mushrooms and rosemary and cook until mushrooms are soft. Season with salt and pepper.

In a mixing bowl combine the eggs, creme fraiche and mustard and beat until well combined. Stir in the mushroom mix. Pour into a baking dish and bake for about 40 minutes. Serve with little toasts of choice and mimosa for ultimate deliciousness.