Sylvia's Scenario

A spontaneous idea for my sister-in-law's birthday celebration turned into a wonderful evening at one our favorite restaurants,  La Rustica . Jennifer woke up on her birthday to a big mess made by their elderly dog and she knew it was going to be bad day.  Not fun when it's your birthday.  There she was on her hands and knees scrubbing the carpet and crying "Happy birthday to me!"  I can relate after caring for numerous animals/pets when the kids were at home, especially in Idaho where we had a horse, goats, chickens, rabbits, dogs, cats and kittens.  Hardly a day went by when there wasn't some mess to clean up, animal chore to be done and something to repair.  I've spent many a day on my hands and knees scrubbing up messes.  Sometimes, you just think to yourself, "please, just one day of nothing happening..."  I remember that well. I don't have the energy to live like that anymore which is why we "downsized" to a house with a smal

I've wanted to post this recipe ever since my sister brought these cookies to our family barbecue for dessert last week.  We also had some vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and fresh strawberries on hand so everyone indulged in a very simple, but decadent dessert.  One of my nephew's girlfriend follows a gluten free diet so we are conscientious of this when menu planning.  It's generally not hard to do since we usually have a meat that we barbecue plus a lot of salads that people bring.  (Except when I made crepes for our  Christmas brunch ..oops!)  When I tasted these cookies, I knew I had to keep this recipe.  The amazing thing is that you would NEVER guess these cookies are gluten free.  My sister got the recipe from  Heather Christo's blog  who is a classical trained French chef, cookbook author, entrepreneur and now, since 2014, an expert in cooking for allergies after she and her two daughters were diagnosed with multiple allergies.  If you have allergi

Bruce was thrilled to receive the book  Running With Raven  for Father's Day when we opened presents tonight after another family barbecue at our house.  We had three dads here tonight for dinner; my brother, Bob, Bruce and my sister's husband, Jim. It was a smaller crowd that last Sunday when we had 16 people here but still another delicious meal.  Lauren and Ari brought a marinated green salad from Metropolitan Market deli (our favorite neighborhood grocer) that had summer squash, eggplant and various other vegetables; Barbara and Jim brought a homemade green salad and bread; Bob and Jennifer brought a homemade quinoa salad and teriyaki chicken that we cooked on the grill and we provided drinks and appetizers of  smoked salmon  and caprese. (mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and basil with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.) The drinks were once again  Mai Tai's  and gin & tonics.  I'm beginning to see a pattern to this summer

Bruce has experimented with making smoked salmon on his Traeger barbecue a couple of times and now we think he has found a keeper. We served this recipe for a family barbecue last week when my sister and her husband were visiting from Colorado and it was devoured instantly. Bruce made it the day before and when it was finished, we did a taste test and then couldn't stop eating it! It's a recipe from Sunset magazine, July 1992, that Bruce got from one of his golf buddies who testified that it was the best recipe. The recipe says that it was inspired from a pastrami recipe that is cooked slowly in a covered barbecue using whole peppercorns resulting in an even more flavorful smoked salmon. And we agreed. We doubled the recipe because we had salmon in the freezer to use up but it can easily be frozen and saved for another party. (Which we're doing for Father's Day tomorrow) We had 16 people here for our family barbecue last week and everyone chipped in to mak