We bought this ridiculously awesome and ridiculously expensive pasta impulsively at Monsieur Marcel (just about the easiest grocery store I can think of to go broke at) just because it made us smile. Between the sombrero shape and the colored stripes, these guys just looked like a fun, party of a meal. Initially we didn't even realize you were...

Sometimes the classics are the best. Despite our desire to be super creative in the kitchen, sometimes you just want a simple, juicy cheeseburger. We want to make an elevated cheeseburger with high quality ingredients but nothing too wacky. We went with a basic beef patty, cheddar, onions, and tomato on a poppy seed bun. Nothing more, nothing...

While Spring Break was here, we planned to hit the beach early in the week. Why go anywhere for Spring Break when you live in SoCal? Well LA weather, despite being gorgeous for about 340 days of the year, decided to be cool, cloudy, and just plain gloomy for the start of this break. We still had a good time, hitting up the LACMA, the Page...

It may sound a little crazy to put cayenne pepper in cookies, but chocolate and spice are a match made in heaven. Just go look at the aisle of fancy chocolates in the grocery store if you don't believe me. I was a little bored pretty late one evening, putting off reading I wasn't all that interested in completing. Dustin was out of town and the...

I am completely happy with our decision to move to LA. For my career it was definitely the right way to go. I am still a bit regretful we don't get New York bagels, Momofuku Milk Bar, or black and white cookies. There would have been a few upsides to going to grad school in NYC. I am remedying these losses with my Momofuku cookbook and...

There was an awesome seafood festival in the Ballard neighborhood we went to the last few summers. One of the dishes we immensely enjoyed were the Scalloritos from Alaska Weathervane Seafood— grilled bacon-wrapped scallops in warm tortillas with lots of extra goodies. We were trying to come up with some new dinner ideas, had some leftover...

Last weekend Dustin and I pretty much had the perfect date day, as briefly discussed here. These are the chocolate chip cookies we sampled along the way. First up was Milk, a really cute shop in the Mid-City West area. They have a huge selection of desserts including ice cream, macaron ice cream sandwiches, and supposedly a fantastic blue...

It may be too late... your soda bread from St. Patty's Day may already be gone, but if you happened to throw some in the fridge or freezer, you should make this French toast. I almost forgot that I planned on making it, but fortunately I managed to remember before the soda bread was too past its prime. The flavor is classic, but the soda...

I was all set to make Guinness donuts in my donut pan last weekend (to avoid studying for my final, which is finally over just in time for March Madness). Then I remembered seeing recipes for donut holes made in a mini muffin tin, which just seemed cuter to me. All you have to do is take any baked donut recipe, put them in a mini muffin pan...

Yesterday was quite the crazy day. In addition to it being St. Patty's Day, we awoke at 6:25 to our first earthquake in LA— the Shamrock Shake. It was a 4.4 on the Richter scale, so strong enough to be significantly felt (the girls were pretty freaked, Bella especially, and we could hear everything rattling around on our bookshelves), but not...