Breakfast After a Morning of Antiquing

By Lori Powell

Oh yes, another weekend… except this is the first time I ventured out to have some fun which did not include a stop at a Home Depot, Lowe’s or the hardware store.

Ohhh, the lovely search and find of special objects and lure of antique shops and garage sales! Unfortunately Pennsylvania has plenty of them to satisfy my obsession of finding treasures amongst other people’s castaways. And yes, find I did…some old copper pots….old silverware and some pictures for the walls.

I am a huge fan of “Antiques Road Show,” except I am never home when the darned program is airing. Like the other folks clasping their treasures on the show, I am convinced I have a Picasso amongst my finds, except I still haven’t figured out which one has disguised itself as just an ordinary Joe!

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Around the World Breakfast Memories

By Sandy Hu

When Dave was seven and Chris was two, we took them on their first trip to Europe. Since they were so young and likely to forget the experience, I made them a travel scrapbook incorporating a collage of tickets, brochures, daily diary and photos.

And since food can evoke a powerful sensory memory, when we got home, I replicated for the boys breakfasts we had on our vacation, having tucked away appropriate props in my suitcase: chocolate milk packets, little jars of jam, and sugar packets decorated with famous French paintings from our hotel in Paris. From Amsterdam, I had purchased fake Delft egg cups.

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Southeast Asian-inspired Stew Cooks up in a Hurry

By Sandy Hu

When I want dinner in a hurry, there's nothing like a quick, one-pot dish. Curried Chicken and Potato Stew cooks up in just 25 minutes and there are few dishes to wash afterwards.

Potatoes and chicken marry well with the sophisticated flavors of coconut milk, fresh ginger, garlic and cilantro -- bright seasonings inspired by the cuisines of Southeast Asia.

If you think of potatoes as a starch, think again. Potatoes are really a vegetable. They're an excellent source of vitamin C and a good source of potassium. A medium potato has just 110 calories and no fat.

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Moonstruck Frittata

By Marilyn Hunter

One of my favorite food moments in film is the breakfast scene in Moonstruck. Olympia Dukakis is cracking eggs into slices of crusty Italian bread cooked in olive oil with roasted red peppers, onions and garlic, all while the conversation centers around Cher’s “love bites.”

Leave it to Hollywood to take something so simple and romanticize it into a fabulous gourmet moment. It’s delicious moments like these that inspire us to try something new in the kitchen.

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All Hail the Bench Scraper

By Katie Barreira

If you’re a cooking newbie, chances are you don’t own a bench scraper. Perhaps you’ve never even heard of such a thing, and unless you’re a closet baker, why would you have?

The simple, but highly utilitarian tool was conceived by and for pastry chefs, who use the thin metal blade to cleanly portion bread dough, gently lift the edges of a sticking pie crust and scrape up the pesky scraps from their kneading surface. For these functions alone, I would highly recommend the $8 investment to any budding baker.

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