My daughter’s birthday is tomorrow. She’ll be 12. The signs that she’s almost a teenager are everywhere. The piles makeup in the bathroom. The dings of her cell phone whenever a text arrives. And her wish for a more grown-up-looking bedroom. The newest hint happened last weekend. We were at Target, looking at shoes. E: [...]

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Or, as I like to think if it, we’ve been following our New Year’s Resolutions for six weeks now, so let’s have come chocolate to celebrate. I made cupcakes for my colleagues in the Iowa City newsroom today. Since I spend most of my time in Cedar Rapids, they get the [...]

  IOWA CITY — The cookie recipe written in cursive handwriting has just seven ingredients and these simple instructions: Roll very thin and bake quickly. There’s no mention of oven temperature or hint as to what “very quickly” means. The only other clue is a small notation that says “Maria’s and Mother’s.” Who are these [...]

I braved a blizzard to drive to work and partake in the end-of-the-world potluck. The theme was to bring the one food you’d want to eat if the world really does end tomorrow. I made bread budding with whiskey sauce. After my 45-minute commute (it usually take 20 minutes) and seeing photos of downed trees [...]

Today’s column is written by guest columnist Susan Mires: Oh, the waiting! The excruciating agony of waiting. Through long months of summer and fall for that one time of year when sugar cookies are made. Then, when it was December, Mom would let us get out the cookie cutters – tin bells, stars and trees. [...]

I mocked Mother Nature by bringing a piece of summer into my kitchen. I love s’mores. I love setting a marshmallow to flames, then squishing it between to graham crackers and chocolate. I love the messiness and the stickiness, and the feeling of happiness that comes with eating a snack that makes you feel like [...]

I made a new cookie. Baking Christmas cookies is a tradition, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add a new recipe to the mix. I try a new cookie recipe every year. Some recipes are awesome and are now part of my cookie rotation. Others were a one-time-only cookie, but that’s OK. Trying new things [...]

I got tired of unwrapping candy. Baking with candy is great. We never have candy in the house. Unless it’s Halloween. Or my birthday. Or I had a rough day at work. Or we’re making popcorn (because we always add M&Ms to popcorn at my house). OK, we have some type of candy in the [...]

We made our neighbors happy. After taking a picture of all the cookies we baked yesterday, the kids and I packed eight boxes of goodies to give to our neighbors, the mailman, the recycling crew and garbage collectors, and the UPS delivery guy. Even with all those cookies we gave away, we still have a [...]

I learned that my children are the best kids in the world. We baked cookies for seven hours yesterday (hence the late blog post; by the time our kitchen was put back together last night, I was too sore to type). We started around noon, rolling out the sugar cookie dough. (Emma’s recipe; not mine. [...]