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In my family, Christmas breakfast is just as important a meal as is Christmas dinner. This could be because we aren't usually done unwrapping our gifts until just before it's time to eat dinner, so we rely on our morning...
One of the cardinal rules of food blogging (or any blogging, for that matter) is: Never start a post telling your readers, "I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a while, but I've been very busy." Well, I don't know...
We all learn something new everyday. You could discover that the walk to your mailbox is exactly 26 paces or that Oxy Clean will remove the worst red wine stain from your favorite white pants (long story). No, it's not...
Ah! The circle of life. Last week we experienced a loss in our household. The good news is that it wasn't a person or a pet. It wasn't even a plant. It was a treadmill. My treadmill. My BELOVED treadmill....
If I had to sum up the summer of 2012 in one word, that word would be......... Pie. I'll bet that you thought I was going to say "Lochte," didn't you? Jeah..............no. Mini pies to be exact. Hand held pies....
I hope that everyone had a safe and happy Fourth of July and that the wrath of Mother Nature subsided a little bit so that you could enjoy the holiday. What's with her lately anyhow? Horrible fires in the west....
Sometimes I get very jealous of Ina Garten. No, I'm not saying that I long for a closet full of blue denim shirts -- nobody should even try to rock those like the Barefoot Contessa. My envy derives from her...
I have an odd habit when it comes to eating. O.K., I actually have several odd habits when it comes to eating (i.e. snacking on frozen peas), but with this post in mind, I have one quirk in particular. I...
I'm just as guilty as any other avid baker/cook when it comes to an overabundance of kitchen supplies. It has gotten to the point where I simply cannot cram any more pots/pans/mini appliances that I don't really use/baking dishes into...
Let's discuss pound cake, shall we? I have a love/hate relationship with pound cake. The love part? Well, that should be fairly obvious. I mean, it's pound cake, and if successfully prepared, pound cake is not too hard to love....
This is why I will never be hired by tabloid news show TMZ: Believe it or not, that is a photo of reigning pop queen Rihanna. She was staying at my hotel during a recent trip to New York, and...
During the IACP convention, which I attended in New York last month, there was an event called the Culinary Expo and Book Festival. The book festival was an opportunity for authors with published books (like my roommate Camilla) to set...
Hungry? If not, you will be after reading this post. Last week, as part of my trip to New York for the IACP Conference, I had the opportunity to take a tour entitled "Greenwich Village and Beyond: Exploring Italian Food."...
I’m always worried that my husband is not going to eat enough whenever he is traveling or at work for what is shaping up to be a really long day. There’s a little bit of a Jewish/Italian mother in me...
I'd like to take a moment to brag............about my friends. Somewhere in my 20s, I decided that being proud of my friends' accomplishments is so much easier, so much more fun, and so much less stressful and exhausting than being...
I would love to take 100% credit for coming up with this delectable little recipe out of thin air. I would really love to take credit because the result was far better than I had expected, indicated by the fact...
I know that I do several things which my husband finds annoying. But hey -- that's one of the best parts of marriage, right? Taking pleasure in doing the little things that annoy your spouse? No? Oh. Awkward. Anyhoo.....as I...
I know. Big whoop. Blueberry muffins. C'mon, Julie. You're totally phoning it in with this recipe. Or am I? O.K., well I kind of am. Just hear me out.....after you look at all of this streusel: What this recipe may...
Overall, I'd give the quality of this year's Super Bowl commercials a B-, not a bad grade in general, but a horrible grade where $3.5 million per 30 seconds is concerned. I mean, really, if you're going to pony up...
I'm fairly certain that some of the first words I learned to say were "Jack Daniels manhattan, up." And no, I was not raised in a bar. For as long as I can recall, a manhattan made with Jack Daniels...
In honor of the upcoming Valentine's Day holiday, I give you: A Love Letter to Trader Joe's My Dearest Trader Joe's, How do I love thee? Certainly too many ways to count, but please indulge me as I list a...
I messed up. Like most people, I usually make a few New Year's resolutions, which inevitably are broken or, as I like to say, become more "loosely interpreted" by the end of January. "Broken" is such a negative way of...
Cookies for breakfast??? Wheeeee!!!! Well, sort of. Read on. (But first, another cookie shot.) It all started with Costco.... I have a love-hate relationship with Costco. Like everyone, I love being able to buy certain items in bulk, like say,...
20 Random Things That You Never Wanted To Know About Me Now that I have my new Facebook page up and running (thanks to all who joined!), I thought that it would be fun to occasionally post 20 random facts...
Well, it only took about four years, but I've finally created a Facebook page for Peanut Butter and Julie. Hey--I've never claimed to be an early adopter. I wanted to wait around and see if this whole Facebook gimmick has...
My 2012 has gotten off to a bit of a slow start. This is because, for the first time in several years, I actually had something fun to do on New Year's Eve -- New Year's weekend for that matter....
I've been baking Christmas cookies for as long as I can remember. I give you Exhibit A: Groovy shirt, huh? Too bad I'm sitting, so you can't take in the whole outfit. It had matching pants, and I also owned...
These are the cookies mentioned in my previous post, which were part of my dessert table at the Sterling Ultimate Host competition. Because they are nice and dense, they are the cookies that I was least worried about breaking into...
Guess what??? I won!!! I know! I still can't believe it either. But before I get ahead of myself, let me back up a bit, in the event that you have no idea what I am talking about. In October,...
Much like my dad, I have a weakness for doughnuts. Unlike my dad, I cannot eat as many doughnuts as I want without turning into a doughnut. If you inherit the weakness, then it should be a given that you...
Every once in a while, I like to take a brief blogging break from the sugary sweet world of cookies, cakes, and confections, and post a little something that sings to your savory side. (Impressive alliteration in that sentence, huh?)...
Broken items in our home don't tend to become fixed items until it is absolutely necessary for them to be fixed. It wasn't until we had guests coming over for dinner on the patio that we deemed it "necessary" to...
At 5:30 a.m. yesterday morning, on my way to the kitchen to make granola, I pulled up to the Starbucks drive-though. "Good morning! Welcome to Starbucks! Can I interest you in one of our wonderful breakfast wraps?!!?" "Uh, no, thank...
Well, I did it again. It has been two weeks since my last post, but that's because it was a busy two weeks. I did have some rather lofty and laughable aspirations of posting a new recipe within 3 or...
I'll be honest: As an avid baker with a highly discerning sweet tooth, I make it a rule to almost never purchase packaged desserts. Most of the time I'd rather just make them myself. This particularly applies to cookies. I...
Since I spent most of my childhood on the east coast, one of the biggest bummers about living in Las Vegas during the fall season is that, well, we don't really have a fall season. I mean, sure, we have...
"What are you making?" Eric says with mild interest as he wanders into the kitchen in search of Fritos, his current snack obsession. "Macarons." "Oh, I love macaroons." "No, not macaroons. Macarons." Blank stare. Silence. Resumes search for Fritos. I...
Some people are snackers, while others make it a policy to never eat in between meals. Of course, some members of the latter group also subscribe to the "six-small-meals-a-day" plan, popularized by Hollywood diet gurus who warned their clients about...
I recently returned from our annual summer trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, one of my favorite places in the world. Although most people who have been to this area tend to love it as much as I do, many people...
My family has always taken our corn very seriously. I spent most of my childhood growing up in New Jersey, where, contrary to popular belief, I very rarely encountered Mafia bosses in track suits, fist pumping Guidos, or table-flipping housewives...
I take pride in my punctuality. If anything, I am usually 5 minutes early for appointments, and I just can't understand why some people are always running late. True, sometimes delays are unpreventable, but habitual tardiness is just plain rude....
Christmas came early this year!! Like many of my fellow food bloggers, recipe contesters, and passionate cooks, I have a cookbook collection that rivals any culinary section in a mid-sized bookstore. What once consisted of a few dozen titles, which...
"Hey Julie, have you ever heard of P90X?" As soon as these words came out of Eric's mouth, I should have sprinted from the room. But no, I didn't. I stayed and listened to his argument as to why we...
Hold your horses! No, I did not wake up this morning and suddenly decide to become a vegan. I've already tried it, and I learned almost immediately that the 100% dairy free-meat free-animal free lifestyle just isn't for me. If...
When I was growing up, my idea of a fun weekend project was to throw a neighborhood bake sale in my front yard (I know, you're SHOCKED!) Our town in New Jersey was fairly small, so pretty much everyone that...
Well, as much as I hate to admit it. It looks like I was not invited to the Royal Wedding. Clearly this was an oversight, but with the massive amount of required planning and details for Kate and William's big...
"You're hot then you're cold. You're yes then you're no. You're in then you're out. You're up then you're down." So far this year, the weather in Las Vegas has been like the above Katy Perry song: one contradiction after...
It's not easy living in Oprah's shadow. I mean, she gave her audience a cruise. She gave her audience a car that won't even be available for another six months. She brought her audience the Black Eyed Peas. She brought...
What ever happened to Saturday morning cartoons? I mean, I know that there are technically still cartoons on T.V. every Saturday morning, but what happened to the good ones? O.K., so some might respond to my query as follows: "Uh,...
I've said it once. Actually, I've probably said it about 1000 times, but that's not going to stop me from saying it again: I love sweet potatoes. I've never been a huge fan of white potatoes themselves. I know; that's...
