Detouring from the Menu in Lagunitas (Feb 20, 2011)

Spontaneity makes any cooking class even better! Howie and Dave specialize in hosting fun cooking classes with a good mix of guests – and their own additions to the menus I send on ahead. This year the day before the class – my second time at their cozy home off a road through the woods in Lagunitas – Howie called to tell me that the eggplant I needed for one recipe and the green beans required for another did not meet her standards.
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Umbrian Bounty in Belmont (Feb 18, 2011)

Again this year in Belmont, CA., Nada generously opened her home and heart to an enthusiastic cooking group drawn together by Anne – who I first met in 1971 when she brought her (then!) second-grader Katie to meet me, “the new teacher” on the first day of school! Anne, who ever thought we would be cooking together years later?! Three other mothers of my beloved 1971 second-graders joined in on the class this year, too (our second time re-connecting “around the burners”)….and a couple of fathers joined in the feasting at the end of our class. Che bello!
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