Wasabi Steak for a Warm Winter Coat

Time to eat a couple of meals to put on a winter layer. The chickens have so many lessons to offer us. Over the last couple of weeks they have been packing it away to prepare for these frozen months. Yesterday, before it had fallen, you could see the snow looming up there. The sky was […]

Roasted Butternut Squash with Lentils

I am roasting everything in sight. This dish is surprisingly sweet, and without sugar, for those needing to detox post-Halloween. There is nothing more comforting than sizzling gourds in autumn. One of the more creepy sentences I’ve ever written.   Roasted Butternut Squash with Lentils Adapted from Food and Wine and Penzeys Spices 1 1/2 […]

Roasted Root Vegetables with Tamari for the Mike Wizowski of Clinical Skills

Having nibbled my own lips into two swollen, confluent canker sores, while over-caffeinating to the extreme of bilateral pseudo-DVT, Diet Coke-claudication of my calves—both symptoms pathognomonic for my stress response to Boards season—I am now finished being standardly tested in medical school. This last exam was my favorite because it thrust me into a perfect […]

Shrimp and Sausage Stew for the Beast

Worst food photography ever on this stew, the word itself lending a sort of downturned mouth onomatopoeia effect, stew…ew. Rather than lead off with an unappetizing photograph of my tasty, hearty autumn gruel, I’ve chosen to provide a charming foreshadowing of Hallow’s Eve at our house, with my chunky little Beast (Beauty in her yellow […]

Shrimp, Spaghettini, and San Diego

Yum. In a mood for seafood when staring at the sea scape of San Diego! The sounds of seagulls and train bells along the bay are West Coast anthems I haven’t heard in ages. All the same, sun and sea breeze long lost friends found again. What a glorious Saturday in the Gaslamp District. I […]

Pumpkin Soup

When this thick soup boils it reminds me of the paint pots at Yellowstone National Park, all glug and bloop. You know, if I had this to do again, I would leave the carrots completely out of it. Carrots and pumpkins have only their color in common—I don’t think they are really complimentary mates in […]

Potato Soup

My mother recently acquired a plant from a hippie gardening cult in Portland, Oregon—these are my roots, people, proud of em—and she named it after me: “Rachie.” Why? I have no idea.   Then she said it looked like a Lord of the Rings plant, cunning and mischievous “like it might organize all the other […]

Cauliflower Steaks with Salsa Verde and M&M Conditioning

M&Ms are the reason I learned to defecate properly. This isn’t an IBS biofeedback story, I’m referring to potty-training. My mother used M&Ms as incentive, and the operant conditioning worked. In fact, I even got M&Ms for leading my brother to the trough, so to speak. M&Ms by pooping proxy. Fast-forward from two to twenty-nine, […]