This year I would love to hear from you — my wonderful, kind readers who make me smile with every comment. Come out of the woodwork today and share a little or a lot about how long you’ve been reading, what your favorite posts are and who you are. I’d really love to hear from you all!

But what’s a blog birthday post without a little reminiscing? Let’s do it in food. It’s totally the best way, right?

Here are some of the recipe highlights of the last six years:

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries -For years, these have been a runaway favorite here — and with good reason. The seasoning combination of cinnamon and paprika give these fries incredible flavor that compliments the natural sweetness of the sweet potatoes.

Easy Daikon Salad – I love trying new ingredients, which is what I thought I was doing when I started playing with daikon radish — until I tasted it and realized I’d been eating it for years without knowing what it was called. Crazy, right? But the big upside is that I ended up this recipe for a sweet-savory and refreshing salad that is such a treat. It really celebrates the lovely daikon radish.

Garlic Scape Carbonara – Carbonara is a classic Italian pasta dish that I adore. It’s what I default to when I can’t decide what to make. In this version, I added seasonal garlic scapes for a delicious twist that caught the eye of Saveur Magazine. The result was a creamy pasta dish full of a gentle garlic flavor and delicious bacon.

Homemade Ketchup – Making your own condiments is easy and economical. This recipe for ketchup is a flavorful condiment that’s awesome on fries, burgers or whatever else you use ketchup on. After making this, I started rethinking all of our condiments too.

Whole Wheat Biscuits – The number one comment I’ve received about this post is that my layering method for creating light, fluffy and flaky biscuits really works. I swear, when you have these whole wheat biscuits, it’s practically life changing.

Thank you so much for reading my blog! Here’s to many more years to come.

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Tasting cups ... different brew methods.

Coffee and I? We’re old buddies. I grew up in a coffee-drinking family, who gathered every weekend day for a leisurely cup. In summer, we’d all sit on the sun porch — even before I started drinking coffee myself — and chat, sometimes inviting neighbors in with a friendly call out the window. Sometimes, we still do that.

My first cup of coffee was had at age 10. We were in Florida for Thanksgiving, and my vacation friend (she and I were always there at the same time every year) and I decided to be a little rebellious and have a cup from the free coffee bar. My family didn’t bat an eye, and I’ve been drinking coffee ever since. By the time I hit sophomore year of high school, I had my own gigantic travel mug that accompanied me to school every morning until I lost it in college.

Eventually, I cut back on my consumption. I mean, really, brewing a whole pot just for me? That’s a little too much. These days, I usually have one to two cups a day. Sometimes I have three, if I end up at the coffee shop to get some work done. Turns out, all the coffee drinking is a healthy move. My husband is now up to two to three cups a day himself, something supported by recent research that drinking a couple cups a day can lower the risk of prostate cancer in men. (Ladies, good news for you too: female coffee drinkers also have a lowered risk of developing breast cancer.)

A Starbucks in Seattle

But coffee drinking is more than a health move or a morning ritual: it’s a social thing. Coffee brings people together — neighbors over a morning cup, spouses at the kitchen table, co-workers in the latte line. There’s no secret why the term coffee klatch came into existence. Coffee is naturally friendly.

When was the last time you lingered over a cup, talking about whatever was on your mind? For me, it was this morning. When was the last time you and a friend met at a coffee shop for a quick chat – planned or unplanned? When was the last time you put on a pot of coffee to share?

If you haven’t done these things lately, you should. It’s worth it.

Given my love of coffee, you can imagine how excited I was about a recent adventure. A couple months back, I received an incredible invitation to attend Starbucks Coffee College in Seattle. It’s a once-a-year program where Starbucks invites a handful of writers and journalists to go behind the scenes at their company, seeing how they make coffee from procuring the beans to roasting to serving customers. I could barely contain my excitement as I lined up childcare for the kids and prepared to go (I may or may not have referred to it as “the mothership calling me home”).

Cate, enjoying a cup of coffee

Not only did I get to take this amazing trip and learn so much about coffee making, but I got to do it with my good friend Cate from Sweetnicks. (I mentioned this trip briefly when I returned, promising a few more details.)

As a journalist, this trip wasn’t just about fun though — it was about research and learning, both of which happened in droves. I came home with incredible amounts of information to fuel a year’s worth of coffee-related assignments. I have a notebook filled with pitch ideas for the websites and publications that I work for — and a ton of background information to get me started. That’s incredibly valuable, and I cannot wait to write them all — whether right here or for other publications.

Hands on a French Press

In the meantime, think about the socialness of coffee. Plan a coffee date, invite a neighbor in for a cup or just chill with your family over a freshly brewed pot. With our busy, technology filled lives today, it can be easy to forget about connecting on a personal, face-to-face level with people in real-life. But it’s important, and you should. Whatever you do, enjoy that time and have a lovely weekend.

In the meantime, who do you share your coffee experience with?

Disclosure: Starbucks provided me with transportation, lodging, food and training during my Starbucks Coffee College experience. They didn’t require me to write about them or do anything more than attend and follow their schedule. Anything I write here or anywhere else regarding the experience is my own personal opinion and not impacted by the free trip.

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When I started baking from scratch, I was a preteen. I scoured the Joy of Cooking for an easy cookie recipe that included ingredients we kept in the house. I found that in a sugar drop cookie recipe. Before long, I was adapting the recipe to make thumbprint cookies, decorated cookies and more.

One year, my very good friend Allison and I decided to have a baking blitz to produce dozens of Christmas cookies in one single day. It was just days before Christmas, and I’d like to think it was snowing hard outside while we mixed, rolled and baked. To be honest, though, I am not sure if that’s the case or not. Nonetheless, we baked nearly all day – sugar cookies, chocolate chip, and more. The kitchen, with it’s makeshift kitchen island table, and glorious dark cherry cabinets, was covered in flour, sugar and more. Everything was crying for a cleanup, but we pressed on for one last recipe – meringue cookies.

Neither of us had ever made meringue before and we really didn’t know what were looking for when the recipe called for stiff, glossy peaks from the egg whites. We beat and beat and beat, but the result was nothing that resembled what I know now to be stiff and glossy. Still, we pushed on. When we tried to pipe the cookies onto the baking sheet, they created one very flat layer. But did we take pause? Nah. Into the oven they went. I don’t remember exactly what went wrong after that, but the result was a tan-colored, overcooked, foul smelling mess.

I haven’t attempted meringue since that day. I was traumatized by the whole experience. Instead of light, crisp cookies, Allison and I had produced a colossal disaster. Fortunately, we’d made many, many batches of delicious cookies to fall back on.

That was 15 years ago. Back then, out of the box cooking for me was trying to make French fries with Adobo seasoning in a bit of oil on the stove. Inevitably, they made me ill. Guess what? Adobo and I are not friends. So, I’ve grown and learned since then. Today, I am a far better cook than anyone ever expected me to be (lest you think I am bragging, I’m not. The expectations weren’t too high). Still, the trepidation from that first attempt at meringue has hung with me for all these years.

Recently, I decided to conquer my fear. Why should I be afraid of this airy little cookie? Am I not a capable, confident woman with all the right tools?

This batch wasn’t without flaw – the recipe wasn’t that good and some of the cookies literally exploded when touched. And I discovered that I didn’t have the right sized pastry bag or pastry tip — right as I was about to start piping. That’s why there won’t be any recipe for this.

But my fear? Gone. It turns out that when you understand what the recipe is asking you to do, the cookies are ridiculously easy.

Do you have a food or recipe that you fear making? A bad kitchen experience that turned you off of making something? Share in the comments below!

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Paige has been exploring lately, wherever I will let her. And wherever it is, she seems to relish in running her fingers through new textures — just-cut grass, warm sand, salt water . . . She’s curious and intrepid, unafraid. I hope she stays that way.

Meanwhile, I’ve been observing and thinking. It’s funny how you can fall into a period of retrospect and lose yourself in moments, memories . . . but we all need that inner movie once in a while, I think. And Will? He’s discovering everyday.

Three girls walked along the shoreline where Will, Paige and I were relaxing the other day. One was much taller with wind scattered hair pulled haphazardly into a ponytail. Another was medium height with straight, shiny raven locks. The third was smaller, shorter, with a sunkissed ponytail. Fifteen years ago, I was one of those girls, carefree, curious and believing that summer truly was just a collection of days spent walking with bare feet across hot sand.

Even as I saw myself in them, I realized that it’s not the past I want to reclaim, but a happy future that includes many scenes like that for my children. That’s what this week has been about: playing, enjoying the outdoors and embracing the relaxation that should come with summer.

Later, I walked behind Will as he chased seagulls on the beach. The gulls would hold firm to their spots until he was just out of reach, then they would spread their massive wings and fly away. That’s part of the fun of chasing the birds though, the thrill of almost reaching them, but then not.

I am cooking this week, and making some great stuff, but I put down the camera and just let us eat for a change, enjoying lemony chicken on top of a delicious Swiss chard mixture that I’ve been making frequently, salmon, poached in wine and slathered in pesto, and the best breakfast sandwich sans eggs ever . . . But more on all that will come soon.

In the meantime, we are putting lots of miles on the double stroller. I worried it was an impulse buy when I purchased it, but it’s a trusted and essential tool that lets us take long, quiet walks. Okay, admittedly, they usually aren’t that quiet.

And Will’s learned to pump the peddles on his tricycle, riding back and forth along the driveway. I think there is a special freedom that you first enjoy on a bike, even at almost three.

Sometimes, you just need to just stop — stop working, stop thinking, stop worrying — and just enjoy what’s right in front of you. Happy summer!

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This morning, I decided I would quickly throw it together while Will napped to have with lunch. I made a few minor adjustments – using regular balsamic vinegar instead of golden balsamic, substituting extra light olive oil (since it’s cooked at such a high temperature, the good properties of extra virgin olive oil with be lost in the mix), and eliminating the herb finish. I just didn’t have any to use.

So how did it come out? Um, except for the five bits I saved for Will to try (since I think he will love it too), it didn’t make it to lunch. My one little bite (to try it out, of course) turned into two, which turned into almost the entire two-serving batch. This is a you-have-to-try-it dish.

But when I sat down to write this and started loading up the photos, which is always my first step to blogging, I got a little misty eyed. No, no, it’s not that the radishes were all gone! It’s that I realized this is a dish that my grandmother would have loved. She may have preferred simpler preparations to complex in her cooking, but she adored good food, good company and good conversation. Unfortunately, since she passed away when I was just 14, I never had the opportunity to cook for her.

I wonder what she would say if I could cook her some of my favorite dishes? If I could have just one more day with her, I would prepare an exquisite day of food at the house by the beach where we spent every summer. For breakfast, it would be broiled grapefruit with toast and some good, freshly ground coffee. For lunch, seared tuna with sesame-soy drizzle over sliced avocado and some fresh sweet corn. For dinner, we would have fresh, homemade bread, homemade manicotti, a tossed salad and these delicious sauteed balsamic radishes. And for dessert? My dark chocolate mousse with fresh whipped cream. It would be a delicious day.

But really, if I could have just one more day, cooking wouldn’t be my total focus – although I would want to spoil her with my time-developed skills. The focus would be on making the most of every single moment – making sure that she could enjoy Will, her great grandson, talking incessantly about everything she has missed and everything I hope for the future, showing off the photos from my graduations, wedding, Will’s birth and my latest ultrasound photos. Essentially, I would try to cram 13 years into a day.

I can’t have this day of my dreams. But maybe, someday, in some other dimension I will be able to. Who knows?

For now, I have my memories to share with my children, and old photos to help me go back in time, if only for a minute. And I have my cooking . . . to create new memories with my living family so that one day they can look back fondly too.

About Radishes:
Radishes are a root plant with edible leaves (you can wash them and use them in salads if they are extra fresh). Although raw radishes have a pepper-y flavor, the intensity is greatly calmed when you saute them a bit. In terms of nutrition, radishes are low in calories (only two calories per radish) but rich in potassium (47.6 mg of potassium per radish, which is 1 percent of your daily intake. So if you eat 10, then you have 10 percent of your daily intake.) and even richer in vitamin C (8 percent of your daily intake per radish - wow!).

Balsamic Sauteed Radishes
serves 2 (adapted from Kalyn’s Kitchen)

1 tbsp extra light olive oil
1 bunch red radishes, ends trimmed and quartered lengthwise
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Stir in the radishes and balsamic vinegar. Cover with a generous amount of salt and pepper.

Cook radishes, stirring often, for 5-7 minutes. The radishes are done when they are browned and slightly softened (they could still be a bit crisp too).

Remove from heat and serve immediately with an extra sprinkle of sea salt.

The post OMG Radishes – Balsamic Sauteed Radishes appeared first on Sarah's Cucina Bella.

This Easter, I vowed to keep the candy out of the baskets for Will and my stepson. I succeeded, except for the two Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and a Snickers that my husband slipped into the stepsons.

However, that is not to say that it’s a candy free Easter. As luck would have it, I was in Walgreens one morning this week and was seduced by the candy. It lured me in with its sweet promises of smooth delight. So I bought some. Okay more than some. I bought a lot.

Instead of candy filled baskets, the boys got other stuff in the baskets. For instance, Will’s basket has a pair of rain boots for the yard, gardening gloves (to help Mommy in the garden), and other fun stuff. The candy is hidden away in plastic eggs, which they will have to locate this afternoon in a mini egg hunt . . .

Let’s just hope that Will doesn’t eat all the candy before I can stop him.

Easter was a blast growing up. I would awake to an overflowing basket of candy covered in bright cello wrap. I would examine every chocolate and candy before slowly digging in. I liked to save some of the treats for later, though I am pretty sure my mother would pilfer from one ones I didn’t eat right away.

But perhaps the best experience of my yearly Easter celebration was crashing my neighbor’s celebration. See, we’d eat Easter dinner as a family pretty early. And oft times I would have skipped at least one meal, replacing it instead with candy. So by the evening I was hungry.
And that’s when a friend would appear next door at her family’s home for their buffet style Easter.

I would never go with the intention of eating, but once there it was hard to resist the succulent ham and the moist rolls and the steaming veggies . . . oh yes, I would eat a second Easter dinner at a party I crashed. (This was but one of many holidays I crashed at these neighbor’s house . . . It was a bit of a tradition that continued well into my teen years.) Eventually, the Mr. Hebert passed away and Mrs. Hebert moved to a smaller home. That was the last I saw of the family.

Memories are good.

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There was this one summer where I decided that my closet should be my private “office” for writing. I dragged an old side table from the basement up two flights of stairs and stuck it in there . . . then I got this purple file case and put that in there too. And by the light of a flashlight hung from the closet rod, I had light . . . hey, it was a creative venture.

I can’t say I always appreciated the gift of being at the beach all summer – sometimes I wanted to be home with my friends or at least have someone my age around. That was the tough part, but at the same time it was the part that made it great. Without the distraction of a million friends buzzing around I was free to let my creative juices flow wildly. I created poem after poem, and thought up story after story.

For sure, it was a whole lot of good times.

There are somethings that bring me back there, reminding me of the happy days I spent with my grandmother. One of those things is IBC Root Beer (no kidding!).

See, back when Chili’s was still a primarily Mexican restaurant with great tacos, yummy nachos and remarkable chili, my grandmother and I would occasionally drop in for dinner during summers at the beach. I’d usually eat a plate of nachos. I can’t remember for certain what she would eat though. I wish I could. Taco salads sometimes, I think. But what I do remember is each ordering an IBC Root Beer. It would come chilled with a frosty mug and would taste oh so yummy. Having an IBC was a special treat and I would savor every drop.

And drinking the IBC you see pictured while writing this, I still savor every drop. And I miss her so much.

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