Korean Cooking: Bibimbap and Red Bean Buns

Foodie jackpot!  Cooking class by local Korean restaurant owner and master chef, Brian Choi, followed by a trip to Sumi Chun's new Korean bakeshop opening in Squirrel Hill. All on a gorgeous cloudless (and kidless) day, what could be better?

Dasoni Korean Bistro in Robinson Township is almost lost in a suburban retail mecca, but one step inside the door and you've left the banality and fluorescent lighting of stripmall and bigbox shopping behind.  Dasoni, according to Choi, means "lovely." Dasoni's sparkling stainless steel and polished wood interior, bathed in flattering and soothing lighting, is indeed lovely.

Despite his humble demeanor, Choi's success is due in some part to his friends in high places. I am not usually a namedropper, but ... I've eaten at Dasoni several times in the company of (and usually with the compliments of) philanthropist friend Hines Ward and other well-known and beloved Korean dignitaries.  However, in the absence of  all that frou-frou, I found Choi to be a soft-spoken and earthy kind of chef--and an excellent teacher.  In the space of an hour, I learned how to make bibimbap, a quintessential Korean meal, and the correct way to eat it, too!   

Bibimbap, which translates as "mixed up rice," has been on my cooking todo list for years. There's a great kids' book, Bi Bim Bop by Linda Sue Park, that I've been reading to my kids for years.  It follows a little kid and her mom around as they shop for and prepare and eat bibimbap for the family's evening meal.  The kids love it because it has a fun rhythm to it and it shows a kids spilling water all over the floor. On the last page it gives a recipe.  And you'd think I would have made it by now. But the ingredient list was so long and the method so involved, I just never bothered with it.  I always order it at Korean restaurants because it is one of the few dishes allowing the diner to control the amount of spicy heat.

Even though it is a standard Korean dish, every chef seems to makes it a little different.  Out of the three Korean restaurants I frequent, Dasonii's bibimbap, I have to admit, was always my least favorite. Now, I know it's not only the combination of ingredients and method of preparing that make the dish.  With bibimbap, a lot also depends on what you do with it after it's set down in front of you.

• First of all, serve (or order) it in a dolsot, a stone bowl that you heat to a high temperature before putting the bibimbap ingredients in.  The heat and texture of the dolsot creates a deliciously crisp shell of rice.  Without the dolsot, it is a much different (and lesser, in my opinion) dish experience. 
• Second, taste the gochujang sauce before dumping in the bowl and thereby committing your self to its heat.  Gochung is a fermented bean and pepper condiment indispensable in a Korean kitchen.  Unlike many American condiments this spicy sauce contains a variety of valuable nutrients: protein, fats, vitamin B, vitamin C and carotene. Still, too much of this good thing could hurt you (at least your mouth.)
• And most importantly: mix it up.  As Linda Sue Parks' book says, "Mix it like crazy!"  

If you don't do these things, you will miss out on the complements (flavor and texture) of each part and amazing complexity of the whole. 
Thanks to Choi, bibimbap has become a simple and delicious meal I will incorporate into my cooking rotation. I pride myself on being able to balance my cooking agenda with tastes from every chapter of my multicultural family cookbook, which includes equal parts Irish, Korean, and Coal-miner's Daughter.

Check out the recipe. Even if you don't try cooking it yourself, understanding how it is made and how it should be eaten will enhance your experience next time you order it. 

Sumi's Cakery

And for dessert! After Choi's bibimbap lesson, a few attendees were chatting about a new Korean bakery that had just opened on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill.  A migration soon began.  I was the first of our group to set foot inside Sumi Chun's new shop (in the storefront previously inhabited by Tami's Bakery.) In fact, mine were among some of the first feet ever to step into Sumi's Cakery.  It was very clean but a little too spare in the furniture and fixtures department. I began to wonder if it was really open for business.  But Chun's daughter Bonnie, came out and quickly welcomed me and directed me to the rack fresh baked buns that were Sumi's first offerings to the public: red bean and cream buns packaged for take out and coffee buns aromatic and still warm from the oven, beckoning me to eat them on the spot.

 Of course, I did sit right down and eat a coffee bun.  It was like a big doughnut without a hole. And the glaze was not sticky, gooey or overly sweet.  It was sharp and slightly sweet, and crisp.  I wanted to ask Chun what it was but she was quite occupied back in a beautiful stainless steel kitchen. According to her daughter, the glaze in a mixture of coffee, sugar and flour. Looking forward to my next visit. Sumi's website if not up yet.  Here's link to a review in City Paper.

   

Ready for your cuppa Io?

Not that I've been dreaming of Greek coffee the way I dream about $700 espresso machines.  Not that I've been looking for a better way to do coffee than to make it out of beans I roasted the night before.  Not that I need to change anything about my morning routine (except get my kids to sleep past 5:30 a.m.). But I have been intrigued by the unused briki (BREE kee) in my enormous and less than useful coffee pot collection.  They are always leftover at estate sales and cheap in thrift store because most people don't know what they are or how to use them.

So when her sister-in-law in Athens sent a care package that included the most delicious smelling fresh ground coffee I'd ever stuck my nose in, Evdoxia, my Greek cooking teacher, insisted I try some. It smelled so good in the bag. Good and creamy enough to put on your skin like lotion, or put in your mouth with a spoon. Ground so fine it felt like talc.


But the most remarkable thing about it is how easy it is to make a perfect cup. Here's the recipe, it's too easy not to try:

Put two demitasse cups of water into the briki (or however many cups you want to serve). Put it on a burner set to medium heat. While the water is heating, add a teaspoon of sugar, if desired, for each cup of water. Continue to heat about 45 seconds more before adding a heaping teaspoon of extra-finely ground coffee. Stir. Continue heating until creamy foam (the crema) forms and the liquid begins to rise as if it were going boil over. Remove from heat. Immediately pour evenly into the cups. Wait a minute for the coffee to cool and the grounds to settle. Drink down to just above the grounds (more like mud).


That's it. The whole process takes about five minutes, making it and drinking it.  It may look like a shot of espresso, and it does pack a similar punch.  But it is so smooth and creamy, not bitter at all. It is like ... actually there really isn't anything to compare it to. After you drink it you feel like you've had your coffee and doughnut at the same time.

Of course, that's the American way of drinking Greek coffee. The way Evdoxia describes it, serving proper Greek coffee is kind of like a Chinese tea ceremony. There is a certain way of setting the table, and of serving and consuming the beverage and accompanying cookie, spoon of preserves and glass of cognac.

Now wouldn't that just hit the spot for your afternoon snack?

Lizzie's Got a Brand New Pot

A coffee pot, that is!  I just picked up a cheap Krups espresso machine at the Red White and Blue Thrift Store. It was clean and had almost all the original parts, just missing the lid to the decanter. At $7.95 it was entirely overpriced, but I guess I am a willing participant in the ripoff that RW&B has become. All that being said, this morning I made a perfect double short latte, and then another for Mr. Ryan, and then one for mom-pool/foodie friend Lisa and one more for the road. In other words, it paid for itself already and the brew is better than Starbucks (not hard to beat, I know) or Crazy Mocha. And--and this is really saying something--it is on par with Buena Vista Coffee, my favorite java stop on the Northside, or for that matter, anywhere in Pittsburgh since the Vault and Kiva Han went byebyes.

Home brew may become a habit.  It takes me a bit longer, but I can do it while the squids are flinging their Koala Krisps at each other over the breakfast table. And I will miss the beautiful-eyed elfin baristas who so gently flex their tattoes while pulling my morning joe and serving the most excellent pastries that should not be offered for breakfast to anyone near my glycemia index. So please go to BVC and support the best little coffee house in Pittsburgh.  Or stop by the Brighton Arms and I'll serve you one of my soon-to-be famous lattes on my porch (sans body art). 

Cookie du Jour: Five -Star Peanut Butter

For 30 years, I kept and practiced my mom's peanut butter cookie recipe. And when my son started helping make cookies, he called it the  Fork Cookie recipe.  He loves the part where you use the fork to smash the dough ball and make lines in it.  I despise the part where you use the fork to cream the sugar with the rock hard butter you forgot to set out in enough time to bring to room temperature. (Okay, it is never going to be "light and fluffy" no matter what I do with this fork!) It is a recipe that calls for a lot of fat and white flour--whole grains don't substitute well. And it calls for a lot of time.  I love these cookies, don't get me wrong.  No other cookies compare to these when it comes to dunking them into a glass of cold milk.  However, they have become a special event cookie in my house.  And a special treat when we go to Grammy's.  In our house, however, we make a different peanut butter cookie.

Grandma Edie's Peanut Butter Cookies.  I found this recipe in an old church-ladies cookbook (created with a typewriter and a mimeograph machine, if you want to know what I mean by "old" in this case.) When I first joined my husband's family, his grandmother was approaching her 90th birthday. She had lost a lot of mobility and conversation skills by then. When we visited on Sundays, she sat in an easy chair by the window watching birds at her feeders. I remember her commenting on cardinals and junkos, her winter favorites. Family members would crowd their children around her, to immerse them in her fading countenance.

At the time, I had no children to present, so to pass the time I would wander through her house looking for clues to her lifestory. I often ended up sitting at her dining room table leafing through her cookbooks. There was one in particular she had used a lot, but I can't remember the title.  I just remember her simple system of rating the recipes she had tried.  A scale of one to five stars (presumably "edible" to "scrumptious.")  These peanut butter cookies had five stars and three ingredients.  How can you go wrong?

Although they are indeed scrumptious, I made them only a time or two and then moved on to other, more challenging endeavors. Until my niece gave us the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie compendium, complete with songs and recipes. This same recipe was included and I recognized it instantly as Grandma Edies's five star cookie. My son, the budding chef, couldn't wait to make them. The result was a perfect cookie for a kid.  Easy, fun to make, and enough protein to counteract the sugar. At least that's what I tell myself.

To make me feel even better about these cookies, I use fresh ground organic peanut butter, organic fair-trade, unprocessed sugar, and a fresh-from-the-farm, organic free range egg. I would not recommend any other substitutions, although I have been tempted to try part honey part sugar.  Technically, you should reduce other liquids when you do that and it really isn't possible in this recipe.

And honestly, the best part is that the kids can experience a great food success with this recipe without too much input from Mom.  Or that you can mix it up and have a tray in and out of the oven in under 20 minutes.

Grandma Edie's Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg

Combine and mix well. Form 24 balls. Evenly space on large cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 12 minutes.  Cool one minute on tray, then flatten slightly with the bottom of a cup or glass. Cool two more minutes then remove to cooling rack. 

Optional:  to make them a little fancier, I sometimes roll the raw dough balls in demerara sugar before baking. It gives them a little crisp and sparkle. However, my mom says it makes them a little too sweet. Try for yourself and decide. Stick with the basic recipe and you can't go wrong.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying (About Frozen Pizza) and Love the (Ellio's) Box

As a hard-core foodie, I usually go to great lengths to avoid anything fast, fried or frozen. However, as a harried, hurried mother of two overactive undereaters, I sometimes go to greater lengths to avoid meltdowns (and dishes, I freely admit.)  It is no exaggeration to say I've tried everything to get nutrition into my tiny tigers. "Everything!" I tell the pediatrician, the endocrinologist, the occupational therapist and the dietitian whose lists of suggestions are longer than my to-do lists. 

Then there's Dad, who is much less paid than the aforementioned corps of kid professionals, and he says, "Frozen pizza. Try frozen pizza.  It's full of calories and fat. And they will eat it."  I say, "Not on my watch.  Do you have any idea how bad that stuff is?" The list of unpronounceable ingredients fills up the whole back side of the box--in a 4 pt font! But, then when Mom's night out comes along, I relinquish my rights and head out the door, fast. What I don't think about can't hurt them, right?

So then after leaving them with a sitter for the weekend (woo hoo!), I came home to find empty Ellio's frozen pizza boxes in the recycling bin. I was thankful for my time off and thankful that the kids (and the sitter) were still here when we returned. And, so I forgivingly and calmly and sat down  to read the ingredients...when what to my wondering eyes should appear? Here is a frozen pizza (i.e. a meal fully prepared and consumed by my children in under 30 minutes) with an ingredient list that nearly complies with my 10-agenda:  Ten or so ingredients that occur naturally and that I don't need a dictionary to define or pronounce. While this pizza does have a few more than ten ingredients, we'll give them a pass since there is  crust dough, sauce and cheese to consider.

Just look at this.  There is almost nothing in this list I wouldn't use in my own homemade pizza:

Enriched Wheat Flour, Water, Soybean Oil, Sugar, Yeast, Whey Protein Concentrate, Salt, Tomato Paste, Spice, Dried Garlic, Low-Moisture Part Skim Mozzarella Cheese.


Of course many would argue that enriched flour has its own ingredient list (and dirty laundry list), and I do not disagree.  I'm just saying, compared to any other frozen pizza I've encountered, Ellio's gets my vote for the least of all evils. (How's that for a ringing endorsement?)

Also, I got a free chuckle out of the warning on the box:

CAUTION: PRODUCT BECOMES HOT WHEN COOKED.


(Full-disclosure: I know nothing about the company that produces Ellio's, except that it has a real physical, google-able address instead of a Distributed by or Manufactured for address.  It may be run by the sanitation department of Lisle, IL, for all I know, but for the purposes of this post we'll suspend our disbelief, ok?)



     

Evdoxia's Spinach Pie

Spanakopita. /span uh KO pe ta/   You've heard of it. It sounds like a high calorie, high fat, special occasion festival food.  Perhaps, if you are not Greek, it is just that. That's how I thought of it, until last Friday when it was the subject of a cooking lesson with my beloved Greek cooking teacher, Evdoxia. With her generous heart and enormous Greek extended family, it seems she can only make recipes that serve 50 or more, and she loves to use oil and butter lavishly. So the recipe is not exactly translatable into health-conscious family-style dining. But the lessons learned were invaluable and totally transferable.

The day's chatter was full of tips and tricks, suggestions for substitutions and modifications. With each step and each layer of filo, she'd say things like, "Thea So-and-So makes it like this," or "Mrs. So-and-So adds this and instead of that." Evdoxia makes it the way she makes it because of her family traditions, the regional customs where she grew up, and the instruction of many older and Greek-er ladies that moved in and out of her 80 plus years. Layer upon layer of filo and culinary influences makes her spanakopita, or spinach pita as she calls it, the best. Reputedly the best that anyone, Greek or not, has ever eaten.

Pita means pie.  Pie can be stuffed with many different things.  In her spinach pie, she uses spinach, of course.  But that is because spinach is available everywhere in all seasons thanks to the frozen foods section. But she also makes with it Swiss chard, which thrives in her garden well into the freezing temperatures of winter. In the summer, she loves to use vleeta. Any leafy green will work, it seems, except the bitter ones like dandelion greens. In my mind, this means spanakopita just took up residence in the use whatever is in the fridge drawer of my mental food card catalog. Frozen spinach, however, she says, is the easiest and most common, though definitely not the tastiest. And, for whatever reason I don't care to explore, she feels that the generic grocery store brand of fresh spinach ends up tasting better than the more expensive brand names or organic.  

Over the past five or so years of cooking with Evdoxia, I've learned that her recipes are difficult to adapt or divide for a number of reasons. The first reason and most insurmountable reason her most of here recipes are hard to scale down to normal proportions is that the ingredient amounts are tailored to fit a certain pan which no store sells. Like her baklava pan.  It was hand made a100 years ago in the village where she was born. It is so integral to her cooking life that when it was time for a new stove, she took the pan to the appliance store to make sure it fit into any prospective new oven. And when her sons buy new ovens, they take the pan to the appliance store, lest their mother not be able to cook in their kitchens.

For her spanakopita recipe she uses a 18-inch round pan. You could make this using with two 9 x 13 cake pans, but it would be harder to cut into the perfectly sized  diamonds that present the serving the way they should look.  Otherwise, cutting it into squares like lasagna, would be like .. well ... cutting it into squares like lasagna and that's just not right.  Presentation is important. So I would opt for making it in the biggest round layer cake pans that you can find. And then follow Evdoxia's suggestion for leftover ingredients.  She always has a suggestion even it if it is just "roll it up and bake it like a strudel."  A Greek strudel, that is. 

So here are two recipes: One from Evdoxia's kitchen and one scaled down for your table. Let me know what you think of my adaptations.

Need a Break? Take the Kids Out!

Never thought you'd hear that out of my mouth? If you'd seen my sinkful of dirty dishes at yesterday's meeting of the Mom Pool, you'd understand. I am talking a giant mound of food-encrusted plates, pots and pans that completely hid my family-sized stainless steel basin. Yes, even I need to escape my domestic bliss and be waited on now and then.

On these occasions, we love Mad Mex!  We loved it as dinks (for the uninitiated: double income no kids) because they have excellent Tex-Mex, an impressive beer list, beautiful/bizarre artwork by local favorites, and great Muzak. We were surprised that we could also love it as bedraggled parents of two loud fussy eaters (ages 3 and 5).  They have the best kids menu with many fabulous choices other than mac/cheese and chicken nuggets (although they have those, too).

As soon as we are seated, the kids are served (each their own) appetizers of carrot and celery sticks with ranch dressing, and, to be honest, if they eat that I am happy. But usually they eat that and part or most of a quesadilla or taco with sides of rice and veggies. Plus tiny brownie sundaes for dessert. The kids food is actually quite good.  I sometimes just order guacamole (which is excellent) and eat it with the quesadilla half I end up eating from my 5 year old's plate.  Meanwhile, my husband gets to order something spicy hot and the kids don't pester him for it.  The wait staff is always young and hip and good with kids, even if it means showing (and explaining) their tattoos and piercings. They are also usually good about not mentioning the free desserts or chocolate milk without subtly asking the parents first. The only trick I had to discover was not ordering the chips and salsa up front.  That usually derails the entrees. I order it as a side to come with my meal and specify just "on the side" and not in a basket.

As for keeping the kids in their seats, we engage in who-can-eat-more eating contests with the carrots and celery.  The first time we went with both kids, they were offered these etch-a-sketch wannabe toys which were promptly and firmly rejected in favor of Dad's eating contest idea. (Which is no small miracle. Crunchy things that aren't chips? Nobody would ever eat that at home!)

And lastly, because my three year old is still into the unsolicited brain-splitting squeal-scream, the noise and somewhat ruckus atmosphere of Mad Mex covers a variety of outbursts, both happy and sad. The last time we went, we sat in the outdoor bar area (smoking prohibited), and it was so relaxing that Dad and I both commented that it felt like we were at the beach (instead of a Cranberry Twp. strip mall.)

Do I sound like an advertisement? Sorry. Just sayin'... . There are kid-friendly eating out choices that don't conflict with my entire mommagenda.

Everyone Has A Recipe ... Even Pop Pop

In light of (in honor of) recent family medical events, I want to share my dad's recipe.  While I do know men who have full recipe card boxes (well, at least one) and many who know how to open a cookbook and follow instructions, most dads these days rely on pizza delivery, takeout and fast food when the moms are absent for the evening. Very few, I suspect, have their own recipes. Hardy Beans is that recipe for my dad, or Pop Pop as he goes by these days.  This is the one he used on "dad's night."

My husband's recipe for these occasions is simply: remove from freezer, open box, place in oven, remove from oven, sprinkle with red pepper flakes.  My dad's recipe was only slightly more involved than that and was implemented a lot more often.

When he was 30, my dad was married, father of four, and full-time college student. To make this possible, logistically and financially, my mom worked the evening shift as a supervising nurse at the local hospital. So many days, if not most, dad was supervisor of the supper-time shift. This was in the late 1960's, so pizza delivery was not all that common.. Although McDonald's was around (though not having served a billion hamburgers yet) it was not within walking distance and my parents had only one car between them (a Volkswagon bus). Besides, McDonald's, not yet the corporate behemoth it is now, really was a special occasion deal for our family.  Probably Mom prepared some meals for us ahead of time, and probably Dad had more in his repertoire, but the recipe that stuck with me (and my siblings) is Hardy Beans.  Just three ingredients made this nutritious and delicious repast:  One pound of ground chuck, one can of baked beans, and about a half a bottle of ketchup.  And the method was as simple as it gets: brown meat, add beans, heat through, add ketchup to taste.

As I read that now, I admit it does not sound all that appealing. Dad claims we loved it so much we begged him to make it.  Mom shudders anytime it is mentioned, swearing she herself never made it or ate it. According to Dad, the time period when he served it was short lived, too.  Having completed most of his degree requirements through night-school, he finished college a year or so later and perhaps, never made Hardy Beans again. But we kids talked about it and laughed about it for years afterward.  As a young adult I made it my own go-to camping meal.  The meat stayed frozen in my backpack until the first night's campfire meal. Cooking it on a campfire brought on dual feelings of "Look at me! I'm a big girl impressing my friends with my camping skills!" and "Oh what I wouldn't give to be the baby of the family again." I still sometimes long for that time when we were all cozy in our matching hooded sweatshirts, squished together on a bench in the warm kitchen of a tiny rented house, waiting for our cooking, always singing, dad to put dinner on the table.

So as this baby girl grew older, I tweeked and embellished this basic recipe in innumerable ways. Adding onions and peppers to the browning meat, substituting real tomatoes for the ketchup, using any kind of beans to avoid the ubiquitous can of Heinz Pork and Beans.  During my 10 year vegetarian stint, I traded the meat for barley pearls. Sauteed with caramelized or toasted onions and a bit of red wine, barely takes on a nutty flavor and chewiness just like ground chuck (well, almost.)

Tonight, in honor of Pop Pop's recent surgery, I think I'll make it with kidney beans.

Post Script:  As with any discussion about words in my family, the dictionary was consulted when I tried to confirm the spelling of the name of this never written out recipe, hardy or hearty? Mom was insisting on hearty as it describes food.  Dad said he always assumed it was hardy.  Instinctively, Mom reached for her ever handy Webster's New Collegiate that she received for her 75th birthday from her four-year-old grandson. (The previous version had been given to her on her 40th birthday by her father.)

Standing in the doorway of the room where my father in his comfy chair recovered from his recent radical nephrectomy, my mother read from the giant tome held in one hand while the other hand waived in the air, looking much like a preacher. Upon hearing the two definitions, abundant, rich, or flavorful enough to satisfy the appetite...     or    ... inured to fatigue or hardships, robust, capable of withstanding adverse conditions, he chose the latter, perhaps recalling those exhausting times spent making dinner for four little hoodlums and simultaneously making Dean's List.  And as with most of the arguments I have witnessed between my parents, they were both so right, it's no wonder they argue.

Want the recipe?  Follow my dad's recipe, or get more involved with my version of it.  Either way, it is a hearty (or hardy) one-dish skillet meal, perfect for a rainy/snowy winter evening like tonight.

Hardy Beans
One pound ground meat of choice (lean beef, pork, meatloaf mix or turkey)
One medium yellow onion, diced


One can of Bush's baked beans
                             or
One 12-oz can of kidney beans, drained
One tablespoon molasses or brown sugar
One tablespoon apple cider vinegar

One can of diced tomatoes, undrained
Salt and pepper to taste

Brown the meat, add the onions and saute stirring occasionally until onions are translucent and sweet smelling. Add beans and tomatoes, salt and pepper.  Simmer for 15-20 minutes. Garnish with crumbled cheese of choice.  Serve with crusty bread and butter.

2011 in the rearview, Martha Stewart* caught in the headlights

It was the best of times, it was the worst ... .

Actually, it was really pretty average. In non-food-related departments,  2011 was Year of Kids Sleeping All Night (for the most part). But 2012 is Year of Mom Responsible for Only Her Own Potty Needs. And it is starting to look like it might be Year of Potty Words, and not just from the mouths of babes.

But more important than all that is the food-related department: 2012 is shaping up to be the year my kitchen becomes more like a kitchen than a closet.  New fridge has arrived, ovens are in the delivery queue. I am so excited, I can't even feel my husband's hairy eyeball boring a hole in the back of my head. (Yes, God bless him, he does have enough to do already.)

In the latest edition of Martha Stewart Living magazine, we are treated to a peek inside Martha's "dream room."  It is the central room in a building previously referred to as the Goat Shed, hearkening back to a time when goats lived better--or at least in more sq. ft.--than the average middle class family in Bedford, New York. Her dream room is called the home-keeping room.  The room Martha devotes to organization and storage of her cleaning products (her own label cleaning products, of course) is roomier and better apportioned than any of the rooms or combination of rooms I currently devote to home/self/kid/husband/pet/garden/vehicle-keeping. But we do tend to expand to fit our budgets, don't we? Kate's dream foodkeeping room will be re-invented on a scale and budget suited to the income and time constraints of single-earner family with a zero-waste agenda. 

Now, I don't like Martha's personal style, and I am personally embarrassed by her criminal record.  But I do admit that she has something I want.  Although I don't envy her money, her vast country estate, or her corporate empire, I am man enough to admit that I would benefit greatly by her impeccable organization and endless list of lists. Tune into LizziesChocolateCake.com to witness the transformation of my so-called kitchen into a truly usable space. A space that will be "very practical and a pleasant place to spend time too" while "making everyday tasks easier," as Martha says, believable or not, of her homekeeping room.


*As my regular readers can attest, I am not a Martha fan or detractor. Wandering around the food and publishing world as I do, one can't help but bump into her.  She is omnimedia, personified.  She is everywhere.  "I see Martha ... all the time."