Carolina Bon Vivant

December 31, 2013

Fast and Easy Sausage Pinwheels

As the holidays are coming to a close, I’m not looking forward to the early morning hassle of getting my kids out of bed on chilly winter mornings and ready for school. They are 15 and 17 now, but they might as well be 5 and 7 as far as our morning routine goes.…

October 14, 2013

Sweet and Spicy Steen’s BBQ Sauce

New Orleans and the South Louisiana region are home to a number of “specialty items” that aren’t widely available so are on my at-least-semi-annual visits — Camellia red beans for red beans and rice, olive salad for muffalettas, Savoie’s Roux in a jar for making gumbo in a hurry, Cafe Du Monde Beignet Mix for…

October 3, 2013

Smoked Chicken and Paprika Brunswick Stew

Cooler weather is on its way to the High Country. It is still warm enough to grill and eat on the deck, but I packed away my summer clothes tonight and have the hot tub cranked up and ready to go for the first really chilly night. And we are slowly transitioning from “summer food”…

September 10, 2013

Chicken Meatballs with Pasta al Pomodoro

My boys are both in high school now, and both are running cross-country. My older son is driving now so the two of them leave the house around 7:45 in the morning and are gone until 6:30 or 7:00 in the evening. I am hearing faint whisperings of an empty nest. At first I felt…

July 26, 2013

Teaching Teens to Cook: Turkey Sloppy Joe Sliders

For a couple of summers now, I’ve suggested that my boys (now 17 and almost 15) start learning how to cook. This summer, out of necessity, I’ve given them no choice. Over the past year, when I’ve been too busy or tired to make dinner, I’ve summoned them to the kitchen and insisted they stay…

July 25, 2013

Stops Along the Way: Cork & Bean, Bryson City, NC

A few weeks ago I took a Saturday afternoon paddling trip down the Tuckaseegee River* in a canoe It was a gorgeous day, warm in the sun and chilly in the shade. My friend and his daughter are both experienced whitewater paddlers. I have mostly flat water kayaking experience on lakes, bayous and creeks so…

July 19, 2013

German Chocolate Cake with Coconut-Pecan Frosting

My newly seventeen year old son, Iced T (his current choice of blog persona) , arrived home today from a 10-day trip which took him from Charlotte to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for the Club 420 Nationals then on to Michigan State in Lansing for engineering camp. By all accounts, it was a grand adventure. He…

June 3, 2013

Summertime & the living is easy

There is so much to love about summer meals — savoring the abundance of fresh seasonal produce, grilling on the deck at the end of the day, dining al fresco and lingering at the table, sipping crisp whites and rosés. We spent this weekend at the lake so I stopped at Josh’s Farmers Market on…

May 29, 2013

Brunch for Two: Spinach Salad with Scallops, Mango, Avocado and Candied Macadamia Nuts

Brunch is my new favorite way to entertain. In the past I have hosted big, somewhat lavish brunches — tables full of friends and family, noshes to nibble with a Blood Mary or Brandy Milk Punch before the main event, dessert and coffee afterwards, much fun but a lot of work. My brunches these days…

May 24, 2013

Makin’ Bacon

This post is a bit of an experiment — can I pull content, recipes, photos, etc. of my favorite posts on Another Marvelous Meal and plonk them down here? The answer appears to be yes. Homemade bacon… not something you made in a 1970s home economics class, but how hard could it be? Answer: ridiculously…