Category Easy Meals

It was the summer my youngest daughter came home from college with a backpack full of dirty laundry and stories from Rome that made me realize I’d never really tasted a tomato before. She talked about the markets she wandered…

It was a Wednesday evening in late August—the kind where the sunlight stretches out longer than it should, and the air is heavy with that end-of-summer stillness. I remember it well because my youngest had just come home from soccer…

I still remember the first time I grilled lobster. It was a sticky summer evening on the coast of Maine, and we had picked up a few fresh lobsters from a dockside shack where the owner’s hands looked like he’d…

I’ll never forget the first time I tasted authentic Mexican street corn. It was at a bustling market in Mexico City, the summer air thick with the smell of grilled meat and spices. I’d walked by dozens of carts, but…

I still remember the first time I made this salad. It was one of those late spring evenings when the sun lingers longer than usual, and you’re too tired to cook but still want something real—something that hits all the…

It all started with a drive-thru on a Tuesday. One of those weeks where everything ran late—school pickup, laundry, dinner plans—and I found myself in the McDonald’s parking lot with three hungry kids and exactly zero energy to cook. I…

I still remember the first time I grilled lamb chops. It was late spring, just after chilly days finally gave way to that first breath of warm evening air. We were gathered in the backyard, nothing fancy—just a folding table,…

It was late spring when I first made this salmon salad, and I remember the day vividly—not because it was particularly extraordinary, but because I was in one of those ruts where even my favorite dishes felt like chores. My…

There was a summer—maybe five or six years ago now—when Tuesdays became “Taco Bowl Tuesdays” in our house, not because we planned it that way, but because life sort of nudged us into the habit. My youngest had just started…

I still remember the first time I made Caprese stuffed chicken—it was a Tuesday, and my fridge was playing that old familiar trick: full of odds and ends but seemingly “nothing for dinner.” We’d just come home from a long,…