Carlye Jane Dougherty and I are casually seated next to an exposed red brick fireplace in her charming home in historic downtown Charleston, SC. We’re sipping a perfectly chilled white wine, which helps soften the balmy afternoon air wafting inRead more
Interviews
Molly Wilkinson Bakes Sweet Tastes of France in Virtual Pastry Classes
Dallas-born pastry chef Molly Wilkinson stands behind the butcher block counter in the kitchen of her charming, light-filled, 18th-century apartment in Versailles, France. She’s demonstrating how to make a simple puff pastry dough for a French apple tarte tatin. SheRead more
Entertaining Expert Suzanne Pollak on Living More Beautifully at Home
Suzanne Pollak is preparing a frisée salad for our lunch. She adds bacon (“You do eat pork?” she considerately asks), grinds some of her new-favorite pepper mélange, and tops the bowl with the largest, toastiest, most geometrically precise cubes of croutonsRead more
California Baker Tracy Mattson Is One Smart Cookie
Maybe the brown T-shirt imprinted with the eye-catching COOKIE…take a bite! logo that Tracy Mattson is wearing signifies super powers, something like the “S” emblazoned on Superman’s chest. Inside the 400-square-foot commercial kitchen of Tracy’s boutique, artisan bakery in Santa Rosa,Read more
Chef Bruce Moffett’s Barrington’s Restaurant Stars in Charlotte
The sound system in the kitchen at Barrington’s restaurant in Charlotte, NC, plays “I’ve Had the Time of My Life” as I observe owner and executive chef Bruce Moffett wield a hefty knife and trim excess fat and other unwantedRead more
Wine, Women, and Napa Valley’s Michaela Rodeno
Michaela Rodeno and I are standing in the light-filled kitchen of her cube-shaped home in Oakville, CA, which also doubles as the tasting room of her family’s Villa Ragazzi winery. She hands me a bottle of their flagship Sangiovese wine andRead more
Candace Rose Rardon Perfects the Art of Travel
Visualize the life of Candace Rose Rardon: Visiting and living in 50 countries, 19 of them in one year alone. Hiking solo on a 220-mile pilgrimage through rural Turkey. Driving an auto-rickshaw 2,000 miles across India. Bathing an elephant inRead more
The Art and Artistry of Amélie’s French Bakery
Our taste buds stirred when we read that Amélie’s French Bakery was establishing a new outpost near our home in south Charlotte. Amélie’s has been a wildly popular destination on Charlotte’s food map since 2008 when the flagship store openedRead more
A Life Rich with Food and Wine
When Bill and I first entered Silver Moon Cottage, our airbnb rental home for our month-long stay in Kenwood, CA, we could tell its owner, Monique Risch, has a deep love for food and wine. First of all was theRead more
Miracle on the Hudson – A Survivor’s Story
Beth McHugh believes in miracles, and well she should. Little did she know when she boarded US Airways Flight 1549 on January, 15, 2009, that she would be among the 150 passengers and five crew members who would survive theRead more