Sometimes being a food writer is like Christmas everyday. Boxes come in the mail and are full of delightful things. The box from Dei Fratelli was like that. Two pasta sauces, two salsas. Yum.

Rather than doing a separate review for each I am just going to say that all  four of these products are delicious. The corn and black bean salsa was not too spicy, but had a very fresh flavor. In fact, all of the sauces had a good, fresh tomato flavor.They are not overly salty and all of the ingredients are well balanced. I really liked this brand. Give it a try if it is available in your area.

images:marye audet

It has been awhile since we did the whole guilty pleasures thing. It is hard because, although I get a lot of companies interested in sending me things not many of those things are products that I would pass on to you. And of the ones that I get not all of them are worthy of the space to review!

A few weeks ago a representative of FarmRich emailed me to see if I would be interested in a cookbook and a sample of meatballs. Sure!

Read more

Well it has been a long time since we did an issue of Guilty Pleasures. Blame it on my time, my complete and utter lack of organization, or stress.
Anyway… here is it. Better late than never, right?

Read more

Patrizio in Uptown Mall in Cedar Hill, Texas is open. What did I think?

Short version- 3.5 out of 5 stars.

I have lived in the southwest Dallas County area for … umm.. a lot of years. When we moved here this part of North Texas was largely rolling pasture and cedar trees. Well times change and over the years the tiny towns became little cities, but for the most part it was a bedroom community. No shopping, no restaurants (besides Dairy Queen, burger places, and a few equivalents of a greasy diner), and when a good restaurant did open it generally closed for lack of interest.

In this area, even a few years ago, if it wasn’t chicken fried steak and turnip greens it wasn’t going to sell.
Well, that has changed over the past year. A new shopping mall opened in Cedar Hill, not too far from me, and I just love it. One of the things I love the most is that there are now restaurants. Real ones. You know, the kind where you don’t have to get a key to the bathroom from the server.

Yesterday Marc and I had some errands to run. Not expecting to go anywhere we were not dressed up and I did not have my camera. SIGH. Seriously, he had been working on chainsawing down a tree, and I was wearing farm clothes. For some odd reason I saw that the new Italian restaurant was open and I mentioned to Marc that we should go.
Why didn’t I look at the exterior and recognize the need for clean jeans at least?

Read more

This afternoon Marc and I went to The Melrose Hotel in Dallas for lunch.  One of the things I love about reviewing restaurants and interviewing chefs is …. I get to eat lots of really amazing food.  Really amazing.

We had the best time and the food was incredible.

Read more

I got two pounds of bacon in the mail the other day.  Now, this isn’t a random happening as you may think.  I don’t just randomly get bacon in the mail.

No, this was planned bacon in the mail.

Read more

Ahh..guilty pleasures. Those little things we do that are totally out of our ordinary activities or mindset and yet….and yet they add a little Mona Lisa smile to our days.
Well, this post introduces a new feature here. Several companies have contacted me about reviewing their products. I was unsure about it because so much of what we do here is based on fresh and homemade. But in discussing this with a friend we decided that you deserve to know what is out there that can stand in once in awhile when you just don’t have time or even..hey, you just. don’t. feel. like. it.

Read more

A few weeks ago Alex from Isle de France contacted me to see if I was interested in reviewing a sample of one of their cheeses.  How fast can a person type, “YES!”?

Pretty stinkin’ fast…..

Read more

Last week I had an interview with Brad Halpern, of Eggology. I was writing the interview for LovetoKnow Organics. It is a fascinating (if I do say so myself) interview and you should read it.

BUT…as we were chatting, and I promise you we did CHAT, we got on the subject of cooking and baking, and of course Baking Delights. Brad offered to send me some samples of the product and I gladly accepted. I mean, can you really ever have too many egg whites? I think not. Read more

Last year about this time I did a post on my experimentation with Organic Shortening.  I used Spectrum Naturals and was less than enthused at the results.

It was frustrating because leaf lard is really the only lard you want to use for baking, and I had no access to that, and I dislike the hydrogenated aspects of shortenings like Crisco.  I know that they are saying that it has 0 transfats per serving but the government allows a certain leeway in that and sometimes there are actually more that is admitted to on the label.

But without Crisco how are you going to get a flaky pie crust or a smooth pure white buttercream? Read more