This week’s wise words of advice:  when offered bacon, never turn it down.

I mean it.  I know, I have friends who are rolling their eyes as they read this whilst running on their treadmills.  Yes, I actually know people who can roll, read, and run at the same time! I, for one, am not one of them.  But back to the bacon…

The stuff is good.  I’m not talking about turkey bacon: that impostor cardboard slice spayed silly with smoke flavor fails to recreate juicy, fatty, meaty reality.  I am in no way trying to scoff the attributes of turkey here. It has many.  Roasted turkey happens to be one of my family’s favorite meals, actually.  Just don’t try and pass it off as a pig, for God’s sake!

Oh, and speaking of God.  I’m so sorry. So, so, so sorry.  As …Read on

It’s a fun life being a foodie and a Jew.  Granted, aside from Yom Kippur, when we fast and pray for atonement, every other holiday requires a ridiculous amount of food as an accompaniment.  Sukkot, the holiday currently being celebrated, is no exception.  During Sukkot (which falls five days after the oh so somber Yom Kippur and lasts for 8 days) it is traditional to eat foods that reflect the autumn harvest.  For us Floridians autumn means the humidity is down to an 80% instead of 100% and temperatures dip into the high eighties, if we are lucky. But still, autumn.

Sukkot is downright a festival of the outdoors.  Sukkah’s, or temporary huts, are built and decorated with all sorts of fruits and foliage.  Not only do we celebrate the harvest, but we also commemorate the 40 years of exile that …Read on

It’s a horrible thing to kill an addiction cold turkey.  It’s even worse to have it killed for you.  Ruthlessly.  Thoughtlessly.  Cruelly.

That is how I feel with summer’s official end.  Sure, South Florida kids have all been in school long enough to adjust to the bleak reality of a structured schedule, and, as the parent of two of them, so too have I been confined to early morning wake-ups, rushes to bus stops, drop offs, pick ups, homework screaming, and early bedtimes whilst insuring all three hundred different activities and requirements have been filled.  It’s no wonder I collapse in bed with them at 8:30!

Still, the TRUE end to my summer comes with the dreaded temporary close of The Dairy Belle, in Dania Beach.  Home of The Best Soft Ice Cream, I have been a faithful addict throughout the hot …Read on

Today is Yom Kippur, the day of Jewish Atonement, where all Jews become somber and introspective, asking for forgiveness for any wrongs they may have done throughout the year, spilling the beans to God, for lack of a better word. All this has to be done without any distractions, which means, no food. Such a condition does not sit well with a foodie like me, as you can well imagine, and so, I breathe a sigh of relief to be a member of a very progressive, informal synagogue, the only one in my nieghborhood, I believe, where my son is warmly accepted wearing jeans and crocs to the service and the rabbi conveniently slips us an out to the food clause by ending his sermon with a “for all of you who are fasting, may it be an …Read on

I had all the intentions for a well-balanced meal. I had bought my veal scaloppini for an, albeit, politically incorrect entree, but after an instant sauté carefully paired with fresh lemon sauce, white wine, and plump capers even this milk-fed tender cow would understand why I had to do it. To go with my meat I had lugged out my super-sized industrial rice maker, whose wide and shiny chrome exterior parallels that of a small car. It came from the top shelf of my garage, buried amongst the cemetery of culinary items I thought I couldn’t live without (but turns out I can). Underneath these gadgets is another shelf filled with a rainbow of toxic paints from nine years’ worth of wall history in our house. This is the shelf my husband swears he can’t …Read on