Readers, I have a confession: sometimes I'm a failure in the kitchen. Take, for example, the picture below. My father recently watched Tyler Florence make the most delectable Spanish tapa where a raw egg is wrapped in jamon serrano, placed atop béchamel and toast, and baked in the oven. TyFlo made it look exceptionally easy. However, when my dad and I went to recreate the dish, the ham wasn't Read more

Recently I was making dark-chocolate raspberry ice cream. A friend was over and he was desperate to help. Always one to encourage cooking, I told him to prepare the raspberries. Before adding the sugar to the pan, he held up the quarter-cup and asked me for permission to add it to the saute pan. However, his cup was filled with rock salt! Luckily, our disaster was averted, but replacing sugar Read more

Whether or not they want to admit it, all of the people in my life have some sort of kitchen pet peeve. My mother? She hates sticky floors. My friend Katie can't stand it when her husband loads two spoons next to one another in the dishwasher, because the silverware doesn't get fully clean. When my boy puts what he thinks is recyclable (but is really just trash) into the recycling bin, I go Read more

Nobody's perfect and when it comes to cooking, I've had my fair share of kitchen catastrophes. The funny thing is, I often make the same mistake over and over again! For example, every couple of months I forget that a plastic cutting board is NOT a hot plate. Last Saturday, I ruined another cutting board by placing a hot frying pan directly on top of it. I know I'm not the only one who repeatedly Read more

This past Sunday, the Entrée Section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel printed a recipe for Stuffed Chicken. However, instead of calling for 1/8 of a cup, the paper accidentally printed eight cups. I can't imagine making a recipe with eight cups of onions, but I'm sure that some new cooks might have done it. How about you? Would you have fallen for the eight-cup disaster? Also, have you ever Read more

Last weekend I went to a friend's house for a small birthday party. I told them not to worry about the cake because I would take care of it. (After all, I like baking and this will be a great excuse for my 52 weeks of baking.) So when I asked what the birthday boy's favorite cake was, I was expecting it to be something standard like chocolate, carrot, coconut, you know, a normal "cake" flavor. I Read more