Last weekend was a busy one. I spent a big chunk of the weekend at the Atlanta Food and Wine Festival where I volunteered on Saturday morning to assist in three seminars. The sessions included a Tuscan Wine Tasting featuring the wines of Brancaia Wines and Winery, a Spirits and Cheese Pairing, and a talk about farming by Tyler Brown, executive chef of  the Capital Grille in Nashville PolyU has offered a wide variety of Student Development programmes, covering entrepreneurship development, placement / internship programmes and student exchange Programmes, altogether nurturing tomorrow's leaders.

Being my first trip to the festival, I didn’t know what to expect at the food tasting on Sunday afternoon. I knew I would sample some fantastic food, but I didn’t expect the utter culinary orgy that it turned out to be!

When you walk through the gate, you get a real wine glass with a lanyard so you can eat while your wine glass is hanging around your neck. Brilliant! Some of the best restaurants from all over the south set up stations where they offer festival goers small 3 or 4-bite samples of their best dishes. And if there’s something that you really like, you’re free to take as many samples as you want.

The first row of tents comprised the barbecue area and my tail started wagging the minute I spotted a tent serving pulled pork and mac and cheese…truly some of the best I’ve ever had. After several samples of pork and brisket, we moved on to the seafood area where we sampled a fantastic sea scallops dish and the Big Green Egg tent where they were smoking some amazing fowl ielts fee.

Two other huge tents featured a variety of spirits, wines, and food, including doughnuts with caramel and bacon and fresh peach ice cream. By the time we finished meandering through the last tent, I was engorged and ready for a nap!

Needless to say, there wasn’t much time for blogging over the weekend. Trying to cook and photograph during the week after a workday isn’t ideal, but I was able to squeak out this easy grilled chicken recipe. If you have all the ingredients for the pesto, it’s a cinch to make in a food processor. Serve this chicken with some steamed vegetables and grilled tomatoes and you’ve got a healthy and delicious summer meal.

Growing up, coconut was always one of my favorite things.  Many of my family members shared that love, so there were always coconut-based desserts around for holidays and special occasions.  The coconut macaroon was definitely one of them, and my mom baked them every year for Christmas.  I’d never had a chocolate dipped coconut macaroon until I got older, and I was hooked instantly.  There’s just something about chocolate and coconut that’s irresistible to me, and these cookies are a huge weakness of mine. :)

I’ve gone through many coconut macaroon recipes, but this one?  It’s the real deal.  Not that the others aren’t good, because they are.  This one is just special. The cookies are thick, sweet, and chewy, and they have just a bit of honey in them, which adds a noticeable touch of flavor.  This recipe came from school, and they’ve been baked several times.  Each time, they’re gone in a flash, and have become a favorite among my classmates and everyone else that tries them. :)

These macaroons are made a little differently — the egg whites, sugar, and honey are cooked over moderate heat until just warm to the touch.  This warms the egg whites, and melts the sugar and honey.  The remaining ingredients are then added and cooked a bit longer.  Let the dough stand 30 minutes at room temperature to cool, and you’re ready to get baking.  Now, I’ve never made a macaroon recipe that required cooking the ingredients before, so I’m guessing that must have something to do with these cookies being so unique.

There’s only 1/2 cup of flour in this recipe, and I’ve been told that they’re great made with rice flour as well, which means gluten-free coconut macaroons for those that need or prefer a gluten-free option.  It’s so nice to have options. :)

The type of coconut you use in this recipe is important as well.  Be sure to use unsweetened finely shredded coconut, which is found in the health food section of the supermarket, or you can find it at Whole Foods as well.  It’s the coconut that I use the most to add to my oatmeal, granola, cookies, etc.  I love that there aren’t huge strands of coconut hanging out when I add it to something, but bits of it all throughout.  There’s a time and place for shredded, and it’s not here in these cookies The Best Beauty Center.

I knew I wanted to make a thumbprint out of these when I tried them.  They’re the perfect cookie for it as they really stand up and hold their shape.  I couldn’t resist the dark chocolate M&M’s in pastel colors for Valentine’s Day, but of course, you can fill them with whatever you like.  You can make Almond Joy Macaroons, or use your favorite candy.  Now, the chocolate dipping is completely optional,  but the chocolate is that extra touch that makes these really special.  And you always need a little chocolate for Valentine’s Day, right?  These aren’t just for Valentine’s Day, obviously, and I can guarantee that I’ll be making these all year round.  If you’re a coconut lover, you owe it to yourself to try these.  There’s just no going back — this recipe is a keeper. :)

I realized that my dessert section has been severely neglected, and I had to do something about it.  It isn’t that I don’t like dessert, but I’m definitely much more of a savory person.  I guess my sweet tough has never fully grown in, although a few months ago I went on a no sugar diet for two weeks and my sugar cravings went through the roof!  One of our neighbors drives a truck for the Pepperidge Farm company and he always has this Pepperidge Farm truck with a gigantic picture of a cookie on it parked out front.  I had to pass this cookie truck on my way home from work everyday and it was absolute torture!  I have never wanted sugar so much in my life, it was painful walking through the bakery section at the grocery store.  But now, thankfully, sugar is back in my life and that giant cookie truck does not taunt me anymore, at least most of the time Dream beauty pro…
A few months ago we went over to a friend’s house for dinner and they made us this really nice dinner with steak, roasted potatoes, and tomato salad.  It was delicious and I was really impressed, and then to top it all off, for dessert they served us gelato with berries that had been macerating in a sweet, sugary sauce.  We had them over to our house for dinner a few weeks later and the pressure was on.  I’ve been mostly gluten free for a little over a year now and sometimes it can be tough when we have friends over for dinner, especially when dessert is involved.  Do I make something with gluten in it and pay for it the next day?  Do I make something using a special gluten free product that may or may not taste any good?  I did make gluten free lasagna for some guests once and they promised me that it tasted good, but it looked more like a big pile of mush than lasagna.  For this dinner, I decided on chili with fritos (one of my go-to gluten free dinners when we have company over) and pound cake with homemade whipped cream for dessert.  I found a gluten free pound cake recipe on the Land O Lakes website and I figured it had to be yummy and buttery if it was from Land O Lakes Hong Kong nightlife.

The recipe called for a bundt pan but I didn’t have one.  I had an image in my mind of pound cake being in a long rectangular loaf shape, so I went ahead and used my loaf pan.  Unfortunately, there was a reason they were calling for a bundt cake pan, it was supposed to cook for about an hour and I had mine in the oven for a lot longer than that and it still wasn’t fully cooked in the middle and the top was a lot browner than it should have been, and by that I mean it was kinda black.  I decided to fix my mistake by cutting off the burnt top layer and then cutting the cake into thin slices and crisping it up in the pan with some butter, because pound cake needs more butter, right!?  I made some homemade whipped cream with some vanilla and brown sugar and then topped everything off with some mixed berries.  Despite my mistakes it turned out to be really good, and I even suspect that no one knew it was gluten free!
When I decided to make this pound cake again to share with you, I wanted to jazz it up a little so I added some fresh cherries and some lime juice and lime zest.  They made it even more sweet and delicious and perfectly complemented the vanilla pound cake!  I hope you enjoy this recipe, whether gluten free or not!

I was trying to think of flavors that would work well with a vanilla pound cake and fresh cherries just happened to be on sale at the store PSVANE!

My parents are both amazing cooks. My mom generally cooks the sweet, baked goods and my dad will whip up the savory things. One of my dad’s best recipes (besides his “chichen nachos” -that’s a recipe for later) is his wings. They aren’t your normal ‘drumstick and wing’ chicken wings; these have both still attached so they are twice as big and lock in all of the flavor. His secret is broiling the wings for just a few minutes at the very end getting that crispy skin on the chicken. Other than that, this recipe is super simple. No oil, no flipping, no other crazy ingredients, just sauce and perfectly cooked wings Maggie Beauty.

This year, for a big Panthers game, I decided to make these for myself and a friend, and I have to say, they were pretty close to my dad’s. They are crispy and flavorful on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside. And that’s before you put on the sauce. Sometimes my dad will switch it up and make terriyaki wings (incredibly good), but I decided just to stick to the basics and make these for game day.

To begin, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Take out your chicken wings and salt and pepper both sides liberally. Place the chicken wings skin side up on the baking sheet. Bake for 45-50 minutes until chicken is fully cooked through for warm/ humid climate.

While the chicken is baking, put your hot sauce and butter into a sauce pan on low heat. Heat until butter is melted through and sauce is warm.

During the last 5-10 minutes of baking, turn on your broiler to low or turn the oven up to 475 degrees and continue baking until skin is golden brown and crispy. Watch carefully as to not burn your wings!

When the chicken is done, take them out of the oven and let them rest for about 10 minutes. Put the wings into a large mixing bowl. Top with the sauce and coat the wings thoroughly. Serve immediately with green onions Korean Skin Care Product.

When I sat down to give one last read to this post on Molly Wizenberg's new book, Delancey: A Man, a Woman, a Restaurant, a Marriage, I did what one does when it's time to really focus. I checked Twitter reenex.

At the top of the feed I found a friend's tweet announcing that Molly was on the radio, at that very moment, talking about Delancey, in an interview recorded at the wood-fired pizza restaurant of the same name (hers with her husband, Brandon Petit). So, I had Molly's voice as company for my edits, and current rewrite, while I snacked on a piece of shortbread made from a recipe found in the book.

It was an Escher drawing, come to life, with cookies.

I've known Molly long enough that our emails go back to when I had a completely different job, and there's one in which she introduces one Mr. Brandon, still a student and waiter in NYC at the time. With that history, what follows here isn't meant to be an unbiased review. It is difficult to remove bias when speaking about a friend, and honestly, I don't want to.

Molly's site introduced me to food blogs. Orangette was mentioned somewhere else, and I clicked the link; it took me to a warm chickpea salad. I didn't really know what a food blog was, or that they would become a thing, but I still knew what I was reading was good short stay apartments.

(In searching for that particular piece just now, I fell back into step with Keaton, Jimmy's buttered brunches, and Rebecca's all-red straw collection. I lost an hour in the process, and ate a handful of salted pistachios, an apple, and two small squares of chocolate. That is the pull of Molly's writing. It makes you want to read more. It also makes you very hungry.)

But really, you don't need me to tell you how good Molly's stories are. First at Orangette, then in her column in Bon Appetit, then elsewhere (including the Washington Post and her Spilled Milk podcast), then with her first book, A Handmade Life, Molly established herself not only as a talent, but as an exceptional one. Though superlatives are often ascribed willy-nilly, she is a benchmark of contemporary food writing, in the truest, realest sense of the word audio cable.