November 28, 2019
This was my first spoken sentence apparently. I wanted a banana. I liked bananas (see below) and I still do very much. Banana desserts, especially. So on Thanksgiving dessert duty, a pie. A banana pudding pie with a Golden Oreo crust. Vanilla pudding, another childhood favorite So my ripe bananas Read more…
And bam, it’s the biggest food holiday of the year! Just like that. Seems like not too long ago I clanked mini champagne bottles in a soaking wet Prospect Park at the stroke of midnight. The start of 2019. Now 2020 is coming. Like hindsight. So let us start eating Read more…
November 25, 2019
A decade of teaching, a decade of turning the classroom pumpkin into cupcakes. These are my all-time favorite cupcakes to make. Maybe because my students are always skeptical about how the pumpkin on my desk can become a delicious cupcake. Maybe because most have learned of my being vegan by Read more…
Say with a Crazy Eddie voice: Want to please the vegan in your life with the best vegan chocolate bars available? Whoa Nelly, I need to tell you about Nelly’s Organics bars. Made with quality ingredients, they are absolutely dreamy. They don’t just taste over-sweet and cheaply like some vegan Read more…
November 16, 2019
Growing up as a female, I couldn’t help but notice that the males were always the ones lighting off the fireworks. I remember watching as a child as the cool teenage boys lit them off while the girls watched. As I grew older it always seemed to be the responsibility Read more…
October 31, 2019
Working in a school on Halloween is a lot of fun. And there is an excuse to go hard with dressing up… as if I needed that. In honor of the undead and vegan candy treats, some halloween images in a very festive week: My students loved these Zombie Skittles… Read more…
October 13, 2019
As soon as my friend started describing his new seasonal side gig, terrorizing people at an old Victorian mansion on Staten Island, I knew he was referring to the Kreischer House. And I knew I’d now get to go inside the beautiful home I spied this summer. Dead By Dawn, Read more…
July 5, 2019
Summer is timeless yet finite. On this summer night, last night, that could have been 50 years ago or 50 years from now, I tried to capture it in pictures: its feel and potency. Because time and place are the richest variables to play within.
July 4, 2019
I made the United States of America a marshmallow meringue, chocolate cake and berry trifle for her birthday. I used the baffling Driscoll berries because they were the only berries available. I’m going to write about this ubiquitous brand of berries, creators of big, red plump berries that taste like… Read more…
June 16, 2019
The summer baking season is on! Which means berries are a-plenty. This corresponds exactly to what my Dad enjoys eating on his special day. So the guy in stripes and plaid gets layers of vanilla cake, tangy cream cheese coconut whip cream and a ton of fresh from the farm Read more…
June 13, 2019
You remember that pie a few posts ago? Well I got in there finally. And with a dollop of Reddi Wip‘s all-vegan coconut whip cream! Yes, now “Big Whipped Cream” is cashing in on woke eaters. Also, Happy Real Flag Day tomorrow. I really liked this recipe because it wasn’t Read more…
June 9, 2019
Pie is not really my thing, but it’s now berry season! And I have had this Willams Sonoma Flag Pie Top crust-cutter for quite some time. After a visit to my neighborhood farmers market and picking some beautiful strawberries, I busted it out. Plus, I was totally sure today, Sunday Read more…
May 12, 2019
My Mom is cooler than yours. I mean, look at those brows. Though mine look pretty good too. I had grand cake intentions for today, but… sometimes I have cake fails. My Mother’s Day cake was a hot mess, though my sweet Mom would never say that. The problem was Read more…
April 20, 2019
Easter is like Christmas but with pastels! Well, in a secular sense… Easter used to be one of my favorite holidays as a child. For one, my Mom made thee best easter baskets for us, including two of my all-time favorite confections: Cadbury Cream Eggs and Peeps. She also made Read more…
March 17, 2019
Usually I wear my “Italians Do It Better” shirt on March 17. But I am Irish, too, so it’s a joke. Actually, my Irish blood is far more festive than my other components. My great grandfather (or possibly great-great? I’ll have to ask my cousin who dug deep on our Read more…
March 3, 2019
My mother has a March birthday and she’s a very proud Irish! (Which, yes, makes me Irish too, though I can’t handle a drink and my intense Sicilian blood from my Dad’s side barks the orders usually.) A fan of my hot glue gun wreaths, she requested a St. Patrick’s Read more…
February 10, 2019
Did you know my sugar cookie game is subpar? Yeah. But messily decorated treats are adorable in a special way. They say, “I am not all that good at this, but I did it anyway, because:” love. And in that way these cookies for my students are perfect. The first Read more…
February 8, 2019
No one gets more excited about Valentine’s Day than 7th graders I think. This I decided while offering my classroom to some of my last year’s students for lunch, where they wrote profound love quotes on my dry erase boards, so potent and new to their awareness. I tried not Read more…
January 25, 2019
Friday night crafting while watching old, sappy movies is kind of my new favorite past time. It is one of the many simple self-care rituals I have embraced. This time… another holiday wreath. A New Years wreath in a celebration of life, quantified. Like my Christmas wreath (and other wreaths Read more…
January 1, 2019
New Years traditions are intriguing. There is a sweet whimsy to the symbolic gestures intended to tuck away the old and ring in the new. There is an innocence to their hope. This is day 1—potent and pure in a way that time will soon taint and obscure. So bask Read more…
December 26, 2018
Doing Christmas-y things at any other time of year is just weird. So as the season passes us by, here is a purge of ‘once a year’isms. Like these shiny color pops in my apartment. Along with my Ambrosia, I brought some holiday cookies to my family’s. And since I Read more…
December 25, 2018
I always bring cake. But this Christmas, I wanted to try a classic, kitschy Americana dish–Ambrosia. But I wanted to do it right. I made sour cream and marshmallow fluff from scratch and followed the traditional additions. I don’t know that my family will be up for the kitsch, sooo Read more…
December 24, 2018
Oh Come Let Us Adore… This Spectacle. Just a quick walk from my place is Dyker Heights, Brooklyn–home to The Dyker Heights Christmas Lights, a popular attraction that clogs the streets with fascinated festive folk annually. Gaining more and more word of mouth and over-the-toppness every year, it is now Read more…
December 23, 2018
Gosh, a lot happened this past year. This holiday season acknowledge how far you have come, how much you have grown, how much change you initiated. Don’t take any of it for granted. Honor yourself. Take care of yourself. Find new ways to love yourself. Know your own heart well; Read more…
December 20, 2018
I had a great conversation with my father and brother on Thanksgiving. It reminded me how good it feels to relate via critical thinking, to find others who are trying to make sense of a rigged game; to resist, to dissent. Yeah, we talked a lot about conspiracy theories and Read more…
