Grandma Nan's Kitchen

On New Year’s Eve, my husband Dave made his version of his Dad’s fish stew. This recipe has a story behind it that I’ll share with you. It always makes me laugh and I miss…

I think I am a tamale hoarder. Back when we were first married our neighbors would bring us tamales on Christmas Eve. I’d store them at the very back of the holiday food filled refrigerator…

Shh! Don’t tell anyone but I have a freezer full of tamales. Our friends Mary and Alex and their son Sandro (and his sons) came over before Christmas to make Guatemalan tamales with us. This…

Just in time for the holidays Loretta showed me how she makes her pecan cheese ball. She uses walnuts instead of pecans, she explains,  because they are cheaper and were more abundant when she moved…

Yesterday was my son Shaun’s birthday. For the past few years he has asked me to bake ginger rolls instead of a birthday cake. This is a two-day process that involves making the light buttery…

You know that caramel that sticks to the inside of the sauce pan when you pour the buttery rich fragrant molten caramel onto a sheet pan to cool? Well don’t think you’re going to eat…

For the past 19 years my aunts, uncles, cousins and their families and friends have come to my house on the Saturday after Thanksgiving with bowls of homemade cookie dough to roll out or form…

My friend Loretta is 85-1/2. She grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin during the Great Depression, one of 13 children. We’ve been friends for about 38 years. Recently, I’ve been helping her organize…

I test and edit the recipes for Edible Santa Barbara Magazine. This week I made some wonderful ginger creme brulées. I saved a few to take to movie night with our friends Anne and John.…

The plan was to spend my day transcribing an interview for my next article in Edible SB, but then a younger friend called and asked me to teach her how to make a fondant-covered cake,…