Category Lunch ideas

I still remember the first time I marinated something—not just a splash of vinegar and garlic, but actually letting the meat sit and soak, giving it time to take on flavor. I was twenty-six, newly married, and trying to make…

I still remember the first time I grilled shrimp—not in some fancy outdoor kitchen or with any kind of culinary training behind me, but in the backyard of our first little house, using a hand-me-down charcoal grill that only half…

There are a few recipes in my life that feel like old, soft sweaters—always comforting, never out of place, and worn lovingly through the years. Garlic Parmesan Chicken is one of them. I can’t remember the first time I made…

I still remember the first time I threw together a hot dog bar. It was one of those sticky summer afternoons where the kids had taken over the backyard with sprinklers, mismatched towels, and half-melted popsicles, and I found myself…

It was a rainy Wednesday afternoon—one of those gray, drizzly days that feels longer than it should. My daughter came home from school dragging her backpack, soaked at the corners, and looking like the day had worn her down. Without…

There was a quiet evening last spring—one of those early-April dusks when the light outside lingers a little longer than you expect, and you suddenly realize you haven’t made dinner. I remember standing in the kitchen, still in my gardening…

I still remember the first time I tried to bake with fresh strawberries. It was a mid-June afternoon—hot, sticky, and the kind of day when the kitchen window stays cracked open for the breeze. I had just returned from the…

I first made this farro salad on one of those summer afternoons that stretch out like lazy cats in the sun—too warm to cook anything complicated, but too lovely not to gather people around the table. I remember it vividly…

There’s a story behind nearly every recipe I hold dear, and this one takes me straight back to a sunny Sunday afternoon in late May. My daughter had just come home from college for the summer, and the house had…

I didn’t grow up with corn salad. At least not the kind I make now, with its sun-drenched sweetness, sharp little jolts of lime, and the kind of crunch that just feels like a backyard picnic. Where I come from—rural…