Bacon IS a trail snack.

I was flipping through the 9000 available channels that I have on Direct TV and finally landed on a rerun of Nigela Lawson's cooking show. Although it's shot and edited very well, the content itself is deceiving to me.   Now, don't get me wrong, I love watching cooking shows as much as the next person and heck if I had a dime for every time I've been asked to do my own cooking show, well, I'd have a  lot of dimes!  I think it's a fairly big stretch to ask people to "try this recipe" when it involves appliances they do not or ever would own; ingredients they've not only never heard of but there's a snowball's chance in Hell that they will find them at the local market... ...and let's be serious, who has 4 hours to marinate anything let along remember to do it as you are running out the door with your toothbrush still in your hand, hoping that you put on underpants! I think, what folks need is a solid...

At least twice a month I'm asked, approached, emailed or texted this question, "What is your favorite dish to make? You have to have a favorite right?" Not once have I hesitated to reply, "Everything.  Everything is my favorite." It's true.  Even dishes I haven't tried yet, made yet or heck, even heard of, those are all my favorite.  For me it's all about the process.  What kind of mood am I in that day? Before I leave for work I take a couple of minutes and make a mental note of what is in the fridge/freezer/garage beer fridge (which really only exists for party platters, let's be honest about that).  But of course the thing I've been craving all day could very easily go along the wayside if I read an article that immediately piques my interest in something else.  Nine times out of ten I have everything I need already in the house however, there may be a certain wine pairing to investigate or that one very special ingredien...

We start cooking class up this Thursday and you know what THAT means?  A house full of wine drinking, knife wheeling women catching up on the comings and goings of the past few weeks.  Since it's been unseasonably cold here in Los Angeles this winter, I decided we should do the next 7 week series on SOUPS.  Who doesn't love soup?  (Communists possibly... their loss I'm sure). Some folks are frightened by making soup. They think "Oh, I don't have 6 hours to make soup"... well, I'm here to tell yah, some of the greatest soups are made in 15-30 minutes.  True!  I'm not talking about the tripe that they make in most restaurants that comes from a powder mix that sits in a walk in fridge for 8 months out of the year.  I mean the kind that you can go to the farmers market early on a Sunday morning (Deirdra) buy a bunch of things you like, and cook it up for lunch :o) There are two Farmers Markets I frequent on the weekends; the Hollywood F...