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About Me



I am a retired registered dietitian nutritionist who lives in Seattle, Washington with my husband, Bruce. I was born and raised in Seattle with a few relocations out-of-state here and there but always returned to my home.  Our last move was to Idaho in 1998 where we lived on a "mini farm" and I started this blog fourteen years ago. I was often emphasizing our backyard chickens that we raised for 17 years that came with the house when we moved in.



I worked as a clinical dietitian at two local hospitals, one with in-patients and the other in home care. I worked as a dietitian for 30 years in the hospital setting and out-patient setting including a private practice in Seattle counseling patients before moving to Idaho.  We moved back to Seattle in 2015 and couldn't be happier being home again. But our farm life in Idaho was quite the trip for this city girl.  I often made cream pies with our dairy goats' milk


and I did lots of canning and preserving from our two gardens and fruit tree orchard.


Anybody want an Idaho potato?




I mainly started this blog after our two children moved back to the Seattle area and kept asking for "that recipe" from home. The kitchen has always been the center of activity in our house and we are always cooking up great feasts and entertaining with food for our many friends and family members. I raised my two children practicing child nutrition guidelines of Ellyn Satter, RD, that I still recommend.  You can get her book here.   Hence, both my children have developed a love of food, cooking and experimenting with new foods, just like Mom.  Here is our daughter, Lauren, preparing an Italian food meal after she visited Italy where she took a cooking class. 

  

Our son, Nick and his wife, Sachiyo, live in Japan with our two precious grandchildren.  We all visit often so it doesn't actually seem that far away. 


When we visit Japan, we love to feast on all the Japanese food that Japan has to offer.  Much of it Nick and Sachiyo prepare for us at their home.



This blog is mostly about recipes I share with family and who have taste-tested them all to approve posting on this blog.  Many don't make the cut but when they do, I post them.  When we are not cooking or eating, we like to travel and dive into new dishes so I will post those, as well.  I hope you enjoy my stories and family adventures with food and find some recipes you can also share with your family. 





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Trader Joe's Gluten-Free Oatmeal, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I don't have very many gluten-free cookies on my blog because quite frankly, I usually don't like gluten-free.  But occasionally, I do find a good recipe and this is one that is from the back of the Trader Joe's oatmeal and it's a good one.  My friend brought some over to our house last weekend when Nick and family were here for our birthday celebrations  and we all loved them. My friend lives a few blocks away and we walk the neighborhood together on weekends.  We can easily go 5 miles in no time, talking non-stop.  She loves exploring our neighborhood as much as I do and we discover so many favorite little spots.  We even found a property with a horse (or more like a pony, I should say.)   The views are always quite lovely, too.  Bruce and I had our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary on July 18th and I made a point of walking past the house where we had our wedding reception.  I told my friend, "Thirty-nine years ago today, t...

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