Unless you're a professional chef, most of your cooking happens in your home, behind closed doors. Occasionally friends come over or even rarer, a stranger might tag along with them. You might volunteer to cook for a shelter or a church event now and then, or bring a favorite dish to a potluck or picnic. But mostly our cooking and eating is an intensely private family affair kept inside the confines of our homes. I wonder what would happen if that wasn't always the case? More

Sometimes I am struck by the sheer physicality of cooking. I know this is an obvious statement but it's one of those things that's so obvious, I forget to appreciate it most of the time. But after sitting at the computer for hours on end, my body achy and unused, my head all tangled up with words and ideas and concepts, it feels really good to lift and bend and stretch around in the kitchen. It feels good to be solidly in the physical world. More

The December holidays always spill over into January for me. Like trying to break suddenly on an icy road, the energy and momentum of all the sparkle and celebration carries me far beyond my intended stopping place. So when mid-January arrives and I finally do slow down, it can feel a bit strange. I'm usually ready for the mayhem to abate but I'm also disorientated and sometimes a touch of the blues can wander in. There's an urge to cover this over with more distraction but then again, it can get a little tiring always chasing one's tail. More

The 10 Simple Things to Make You Happier at Home post over on Apartment Therapy has inspired me to think about a similar post for The Kitchn. What are the essential ingredients for a happy kitchen? In many ways, this is what every Weekend Meditation is about, but for this week I thought I would get a little more specific. Read on for my 10 suggestions and please offer your own in the comments! More

It was such a joy to stumble across this photo project by Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti, who traveled around the world asking grandmothers to prepare and share their favorite home-cooked meals. The project "pays homage to all the grandmothers in the world and to their love for good cooking," and it sweetly shows the care and pride they put into their prized home recipes. From a shark soup in the Philippines to moose steak in Alaska, from chicken vindaloo in India to swiss chard ravioli in Italy, each grandmother also shares her recipe, which Galimberti has compiled on his website. More

Where I live, solstice day was bleak and cold. It rained hard all day and by 2PM I had already lit a few candles and turned on the sparkly white Christmas lights. I stayed mostly in the kitchen where I had put a pot of beans on to cook even though I had no immediate plans for them. The decision was spontaneous, so the beans hadn't been soaked and required a good long time on the stove. I added a little onion, a few whole garlic gloves, a bay leaf, some peppercorns, and a few pinches of salt to the pot and set it on the back burner where it quietly bubbled away for the rest of the afternoon. What old, half-buried instinct was I obeying when I did this? The only thing I know is that my need to have something (anything) simmering on the stove was as great as the need for the actual beans themselves. More

Dana's Weekend Meditations are a treasure. Every Sunday morning we sit down to read her thoughtful words on cooking, learning, slowing down, appreciating, living. It was hard to pick 15 favorites, so we went with the ones that connected most with you, our readers. These 15 posts were Dana's most-read Meditations of the year. Give yourself a gift and read through them when you need a moment to regroup in the midst of the holiday hubbub. More

No, I didn't make these amazing sweet cookies that look like savory things, but I really, really want to. And I probably won't.

I am quite sure that I'm not alone when I say my kitchen has been extra busy these days. Even as I write this, several jars of freshly canned fig chutney are lined up on the counter waiting for their labels while a pot of experimental mincemeat simmers on the stove and two sticks of butter slowly soften in a mixing bowl. (It's that Most Wonderful Time of the Year when one can automatically place two sticks of butter out to soften every morning upon rising, for surely they will be needed before the day is done.) It's a little crazy, a little stressful, and I love it. More

It's been raining heavily here for several days now, and while it's not impossible to walk to a near by store for provisions, I'm not so inclined to venture out into the cold, wet lashings and lake-sized puddles. This has given me the opportunity to dig a little deeper into my pantry and see what I can create from what's at hand. This has also necessitated a slightly different approach to meal time. Instead of asking my usual question what do I want?, I begin by asking what do I have?
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