It’s been said before, but it bears repeating: The French do everything with style, almost effortlessly. At a recent wedding in Normandy, I learned how to throw a Champagne reception the proper way, in a simple and beautiful setting, with minimalist, yet sublime hors d’œuvre, the perfect complement to Champagne and happiness. I may lack the proper setting at home, but I can definitely try for the menu.

I love Halloween. I love the fact that kids of all ages come from other neighborhoods to trick-or-treat. (This is also known as neighborhood hopping and I think it’s great.) I love sitting on the porch and handing out candy and talking to anyone who comes by. And I love that my friends come over to help me celebrate. Every year we host a drop-in Halloween pumpkin chili party; it’s become something of a tradition.

Day 5 Task: Restock ingredients I needed more destocking than restocking. Judging from the mess in my fridge, freezer and pantry, I had everything I needed. It was time to use it! But all that shiny, empty space was tempting, so I did add a few things. The first thing I did was take stock of my stock (ha!). I was down to one container and I had a bag of duck bones and onions in the freezer, so I knew what I had to do. I even managed to use a few more things in the fridge that needed to go away.

Day 6 Task: Consider appliances, gadgets and tools. Y’all! We have crossed the halfway line of The Kitchn Cure! Doesn’t it feel great? The Cure has been all about streamlining for me. I don’t need more, I need less, so I can find and use what I have. As I went through my appliances, gadgets and tools, I found at least one really cool thing I had forgotten, and I’ll be using it regularly.

There’s nothing I hate more than something that doesn’t work well, and I’ve definitely been tormented by plastic wrap. Who hasn’t? (Well, maybe a lot of people, but I’m not one of them.) The Kitchn Cure has me really looking at what’s inconvenient about my kitchen, and how I can change it. As you may have noticed, I’m pretty excited about my new ChicWrap dispenser. This stuff really works! And the zip cutter on top of the box is genius.

If you follow the weather, you may have heard that we here in South Carolina have experienced some very cold precipitation, some of it resembling snow, and it has thrown us a little off track (okay, a lot). Our kids have been at home, and we need projects, easy projects that don’t require trips to the grocery store, because they are out of everything. I remembered an oldie but a goodie: painting cookies. Our first son, now 15 years old, got to paint a lot of cookies. Why?

My husband’s mother is French, and his father was Serbian. I knew this — and them — when I married him, so I can’t complain. After all, there are a lot of advantages. She is a wonderful cook, hostess and teacher, and he was an accomplished and caring doctor who dedicated much of his career to treating people with HIV from the time it first surfaced. He also came from a culture entirely different from my own. (I’m half country, half city, all South Carolina.

The task has been undertaken before, but I wanted to find out for myself: Will a silver spoon in an open bottle of bubbly keep it bubbly Drawing on my memory of middle school science projects, I designed the perfect experiment, then invited several participants (a.k.a. people I wanted to hang out and drink wine with). This was a lot more fun than my projects in seventh grade, and I didn’t even have to make a poster to share our findings!

In the eighties, our phone rang a lot during dinner, something my mother didn’t love, though she saw the necessity in my dad’s line of work. He was a real estate agent, and a lot of people needed him outside of their own work hours. (After all, you usually have to have a job to buy a house, so ditching work to look for one isn’t the best plan.) But we still had rules about talking on the phone during dinner, and they even applied to Dad.

I love food. I like to eat it, cook it, shop for it, think about it… and even, very occasionally, grow it. I also love to read. In the middle of a good book, no matter how compelling the story, I often get distracted by mentions of food. Years ago, reading John Irving’s A Son of the Circus, a brief reference to some street food sent me running to the kitchen to try to make patties with chickpeas, potatoes and green peas.

When we got married, my aunt gave us two sterling silver iced tea spoons, promising I could use them for so much more than tea. Which is good, because — get ready to take away my Southern card — I don’t like iced tea. I know. But my aunt was right. These spoons are good for so much more. This Mother’s Day, maybe your mom would love to put her feet up on the ottoman and sip a lovely glass of lavender iced tea with lemon.

I bought the mini food processor at an outlet years ago, for around $20. I wanted the real deal, but it just wasn’t in the budget. “Why not?” I asked myself, “What do I have to lose, other than $20?” But this was the little processor that could, and it got used often, even after the 14-cup model made its way into my kitchen. The other day, I dropped the prep bowl one too many times and it cracked for good.

I have stacks and stacks of plain white serving pieces. I pick them up all over the place — Target, yard sales, World Market, second hand shops, other people’s houses when they aren’t looking — whenever I see them and the price is right. They’re easy, because they go with everything and give my party spread a nice, clean look, letting the food shine.

The other day, I came home from one of my favorite local groceries, the Super Acapulco, with hot peppers, queso fresco, a few avocados, some beautiful green onions, and a bag of healthy tomatillos. I imagined a delicious taco salad dinner. Also on my mind was salsa verde, which I have made many times before. So it would be easy. But I got distracted, and things went wrong. Lucky for me, all was not lost. It’s hard to believe anyone could mess up this recipe, it’s so simple.

My father was raised in a family of seven children, so my three siblings and I have a lot of aunts, uncles and cousins. The other night, a number of them were leaving my house after dinner and a few multi-generational games of pool. “Do people always bring all this food?,” Kim, my cousin from California asked, somewhat incredulously. Well, yes, when we need it. We asked her what people ate in California when they weren’t up to cooking for themselves. She laughed. But, really.

I don’t remember why I decided to plant tomatoes this summer. Because my gardening skills are dismal, I haven’t done it in years, and have depended on the kindness of friends and neighbors and the prowess of local farmers to provide my favorite summer produce. Predictably, my tomato plants were not great producers. This may have had something to do with the fact that I dropped them in the ground and ignored them.

Do you ever look into your fridge and think, “There’s nothing to eat. Better go to the store?” Because I do that occasionally. Reality check: There’s plenty of food in my fridge, freezer, and pantry. All I have to do is put it together. The other day, short on time and cash, I pulled out the slow cooker and made dinner, without buying a single thing. Here’s what I did.

The other night, I hosted a small meeting at my house, a group of ladies who were coming over to talk about auction acquisitions for my son’s school. You know what makes a meeting more fun? Food and wine. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I decided to channel my mother and whip up a few easy 70s-style appetizers. Besides, I was really craving bacon wrapped water chestnuts. The meeting started at 7pm.

When our kids (now 16, 13, and 8 — how did that happen?) were little, I loved the sheer cuteness of Ikea’s set of kids’ stainless steel flatware. In all honesty, they didn’t get much use, since by the time the kids were eating food that required them, they were big enough to use adult-sized cutlery. But this little set of flatware still gets a lot of play in our house — at cocktail parties.

New Year’s Day is good for a few things: recovering from staying up too late the night before, eating your hoppin’ john and greens, and hanging around the house with friends and family, starting the new year with the people who love you most. But you can only sit around sharing resolutions for so long. What’s next? Game time! Here are a few suggestions to get you started. Sorry! is fun for all ages, and Monopoly covers a pretty wide age range.

I don’t have allergies. Or maybe I do. Recently, I noticed a correlation between eating shrimp and getting a wild and itchy rash on my arms and neck. I haven’t been tested, but I think it’s best that I not eat shrimp. When offered a plate of shrimp appetizers, I am trying to say, “No, thank you,” because I don’t want to introduce the subject of itchy rashes at a perfectly lovely cocktail party.