Happy new year! I have deadlines like whoa but wanted to wish you a good January full of delicious developments.

These little lovelies grew on my kitchen counter (by design, you jokers. I swear I maintain good housekeeping practices! We wanted these fungi to grow where they grew). This was a box garden we found at Home Depot of all places…careful watering led to a crop of the most delicious fresh oyster mushrooms anybody ever ate. We harvested these with a pair of kitchen shears, and I sauteed them in olive oil, with just a little salt for seasoning.

WOW. Taste explosion. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a single serving of something insanely delicious than a whole bag of something meh that leaves you feeling yucky afterwards (yeah Doritos, I’m talking about you…). I served the sauteed mushrooms alongside a steak, and it was perfect. Ahh.

If you want to hunt these down for yourself, check it out!  Have a wonderful week :)

I don’t want last week’s triumphant-ish blog to give you the wrong impression.

Don’t be fooled. I am not a kitchen goddess, no matter how much I’ve learned about executing recipes, out of desperation. My friend Genia is a domestic goddess, one who has written a cookbook with her sisters no less, and last week she called me a “wolf in the kitchen.”

Wolf in the kitchen. I *love* that.

Because for me, the kitchen is a mysterious place of danger, a place where no matter how much I pretend I will never really and truly belong. That is more than fine, brothers and sisters…to paraphrase Clint Eastwood, a woman and a cook have both got to know their limitations.

To me, the home itself is a place of danger, because it is where you let down your guard, where you bare your heart to the people you love the most. And I’d rather be on the hunt with my people than in charge of making the appetizers look pretty.

Wolves are wild, they run in howling packs, and best of all, they get hungry. A wolf in the kitchen might not be able to bake and professionally plate petit-fours. But she will make damn sure you share in the kill.

You find sanctuary in my lair, dear reader, the linens may not match. But you can bet your life that you will get fed.