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I did have an inkling it was the day of celebration called, ‘Chinese New Year’. But it graphically sunk in when our beautiful daughter-in-law Lourdes sent the family a video showing our granddaughter Audrey dancing to a traditional Chinese song with her school classmates all wearing Chinese garb. I was…

Not long after our son was born in Key West, my wife, Janet got homesick for our native Illinois. So … we returned driving the somewhat beat up pickup truck we bought ourselves from the wedding gift money six years earlier. I looked for a cooking job but while we…

Shakespeare wrote in his play, ‘As You Like It”, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances”. I seem to have entered via the kitchen door… and thus far have never left that room for long. Shakespeare mentions…

The coconut tree is a member of the palm tree family. Coconut as a term can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which botanically is a drupe, not a nut. If you are wondering what else is a drupe look no further than an avocado….

Over my head on my writing desk I have a pen holder with the iconic graphic of the Sun Maid Raisin girl. She wears a broad sun bonnet and holds a large basket of luscious grapes. I carried a small box of those raisins in my lunch box to grade…

We, like many families … and families of many faiths keep the tradition of making Christmas cookies. It would be impossible not to begin with our Nana’s shortbread cookies. They actually got better as the months pass kept in a treasured cookie tin. Gingersnap cookies are another favorite. Once I…

Years ago we were in New York City to do a culinary event. We went to a new restaurant making waves back then operated by our chef friend, Bobby Flay.  Bobby has a lot of genuine passion for Spanish foods. He knew I did and do as well. The name…

Not too long after I became serious about cooking … and the passion gripped me tightly .. I’ve twisted and wrestled around with food composition ideas while still in the requisite lunacy of dreams. Sometimes something useful comes out of the nocturnal pageant. Yet often it is a mishmash, so…

Our mother was proud of us as she watched us like little ducks following in some ancient rite of passage as we went to our first swimming lessons at Happy Hollow on Diamond Lake in the late days of May or early June. Truth was that the lake was still…