Last week was one of the first glorious summer-like weekends in San Francisco. So I spent Saturday and Sunday gardening blissfully. It was time to open the sun umbrella over the table on the deck, fire up the grill to cook up some burgers, and sit back with a cool glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade.

With the skyrocketing cost of gas and food, expect consumers to be entertaining at home in their own backyard instead of going away on vacations and dining out. And why not, with more consumers building outdoor living spaces that make staying home a summer pleasure? [more…]

December is a busy time in my household — cooking and baking for my own holiday party, for potlucks and for our family’s Christmas dinner. This month, I’ve made four types of cookies,two Christmas wreath braided yeast breads, a double recipe of Buche de Noel with meringue mushrooms, pork pate with red onion confit, gravlax (cured salmon), two kinds of chutney to serve with Kerrygold cheeses, smoked trout spread, homemade pita chips with artichoke dip…and more.

Tonight, I’m preparing roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, followed in a few days by dainty sandwiches and sweets for a post-Christmas tea party I’m hosting for my mother and her friends. Toward the end of the week, it will be time to start prepping for the New Year, with several kinds of sushi and traditional Japanese New Year food.

I could skip all the stress by eliminating these get-togethers, hiring a caterer or buying foods already prepared. But for me, the fun and satisfaction comes from the doing. Getting out the KitchenAid and the Cuisinart is as much a part of my holiday traditions as is decorating the tree and hanging the stockings. [more…]

This weekend, we decorated our Christmas tree. Twice.

Four of us put in about 2.5 hours each, for a total of ten people hours, before the tree began to list dangerously. On the tree were handblown German ornaments from Gumps, Waterford balls I had bought in Ireland this fall, and a large collection of favorites spanning more than 30 years. There were even a few priceless World War II ornaments handed down from my mom. Not a good situation.

There was nothing to do but to remove all the ornaments and lights and start over at 10:30 that night. All because of some bad advice given at the plant store where we had purchased the tree. [more…]

Awhile ago, PC Magazine waxed poetic about the glories of the wired home. Hey, I’m all for wi-fi so I can be online throughout the house. And I need my TiVo. But don’t touch my kitchen.

I love electronic toys — podcasts on my iPod, music from my smart phone, games on my pda — even little Roomba to clean my house. But few of these come without frustrations. Like when I couldn’t get into iTunes to download “Wait, Wait don’t Tell Me,” before a business trip. Or when my smartphone stopped giving me e-mail when my mom was in the hospital. The last straw was when my Palm stopped making a bluetooth connection with my cell phone after the hours I spent configuring e-mail and Internet access. (Only little Roomba performs his little heart out, all the time.)

So I began thinking. As we harness technology in the kitchen, how are we going to connect to access all the services promised and how are we going to maintain the technology? What does a service contract look like for an Internet-enabled refrigerator? [more…]

And what did you do this past Martin Luther King weekend? On the spur of the moment, we drove up last Sunday to Healdsburg, about an hour away from San Francisco. Despite its proximity to home, we decided to stay overnight at a bed & breakfast as a special treat. Just spending two days in this picturesque town felt like taking a week’s vacation. It was relaxed and just lovely, surrounded by vineyards and the natural beauty of Sonoma County.

We found ourselves in the middle of Winter Wineland. A $25 ticket bought us a wine glass, an ID bracelet, and access to more than 90 participating wineries for wine tasting. [more…]

My sons and I have been debating whether the “You!” identified as Time magazine’s person of the year includes me and other Baby Boomers or just refers to Generation Y/Millennials (those 12 to 29 years old in 2006). Unlike my sons, I don’t have a MySpace or Facebook page, I’m not in starring in a video on YouTube and I haven’t rated a seller on ebay.

But I beg to differ. I do blog (not as often as I intend to) and I have contributed to a travel wiki and I have added a book review to Amazon. So I am exhibiting a bit of personal control on the Information Age in my own modest way.

While it’s true that most of us who are computer literate aren’t taking advantage of all the ways we could imprint our opinions and personalities on the great world, we are making our thoughts, feelings and ideas known. Even in the area of food. [more…]

Terry Blonder Golson, who lives in a small town west of Boston, loves chickens. For ten years, she has kept a small flock in her backyard. The hens, of different breeds, are very individual and quite beautiful.

Terry calls them “my girls” and they have such names as Buffy, Ginger, Edwina, Eleanor and Aunt Petunia. You can take a peek at them strutting and scratching via Terry’s hen cam, but only during the day — the hen cam shuts down at night when the hens go to bed. [more…]

Recently, I had the pleasure of helping to plan a San Francisco food education tour for eight journalists from China, who were visiting the country as guests of the U.S. Potato Board. They were on the last leg of their American discovery journey and we had just two days. With so many fabulous food-related places to visit, we had to make some difficult choices.

We started at public relations agency Ketchum’s San Francisco office, where I gave an overview of food trends, including a look at the evolution of Chinese cuisine in the United States. [more…]

I’ve always loved grilled food and we have certainly grilled our share of ribs, steaks, burgers and hot dogs over many summers. But until recently we fell short of the 26 times per year average grill usage per household, as reported by the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association.

We just purchased our first gas grill last month and now I get it. Almost-instant heat. Minimal food prep. Nominal cleanup. Delicious, healthy meals. What’s not to like? We’re now grilling several times a week, weeknights included.

Gas grilling is hardly different from broiling in the kitchen. Which may be why, although still a heavily male activity, more than 35 percent of women are now grilling, according to the same survey. [more…]

Renovating a kitchen is a lot like giving birth to a baby. It seems agonizingly slow, you encounter various setbacks, but when it’s over, you forget the pain and take joy in the result.

The kitchen featured on my Web site is my own, and was born after years of dreaming, more than a year of planning and another year of construction. The kitchen serves as my work test kitchen as well as a home kitchen, so it has some features specific to a professional kitchen, but also a number of features that make a consumer kitchen more functional. [more…]