Hello Friends and Readers!

The week after Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year.  The house is clean and decorated, the company has come and gone, and I can relax and reflect on the year, and spend quality time with the family.   I am celebrating with my brother the family he is building.  I am also chuckling because he’s finding himself in the position of cooking for a family for the first time in his life.  That was the birth of an epiphany for me.

This blog is going to build something new, too.  It’s going to teach my brother  how to cook like I do.  Because he asked.  Because I think it will be fun.  Because I think that there might be something healing or redeeming in the process.  Because what big sister can resist the opportunity to tell her brother what to do, and in public no less?

What I hope to impart are important lessons such as “garlic - it’s just as important as salt and pepper” and “there are no recipe police, you can leave out the celery.”  I might even ‘fess up, in writing, about the stuffed chicken legs, bunny cakes with cement frosting, and bologna as wall art….   At the very least he’ll finally learn how to make his own stuffing!

Here’s to 2010, I hope better things are in the stars for all of us.  Thanks for being with me this far, I’m pretty sure you’re going to like where we’re going.

Marianne