Dear Chocolate Chip Cookie, After more than 35 years working in kitchens, I’ve come to suspect you understand something about comfort and contentment that the rest of us often forget. We live in a culture that pushes upgrades: bigger houses, newer cars, fancier vacations. Even desserts often arrive dressed up and overcomplicated. And yet you … Read more

Halloween candy cookies are a fast, crowd-pleasing way to transform leftover trick-or-treat candy into a dessert everyone will love. These cookies start with a box of white cake mix, so the dough comes together in minutes without creaming butter or measuring multiple dry ingredients. Each cookie is packed with chopped candy bars so every bite … Read more

There was one project my culinary students talked about all year long. Cupcake Wars. Long before we ever baked a single cupcake, the questions would start. “When are we doing Cupcake Wars?” “What’s the theme this year?” “Can we pick our groups yet?” I loved that buzz as much as they did—it set the tone … Read more

Lately, something unexpected has been unfolding in my kitchen. After decades of cooking, baking, teaching, testing recipes, running food-related businesses, and raising a family around meals, I assumed I knew precisely what a kitchen was for. It was a place to feed people. A place to create recipes and get things done. A workspace centered … Read more

There are a few things in my kitchen I could never replace—not because they’re valuable or fashionable, but because they carry pieces of the people I love. My Mamu’s measuring spoons. My Grandma Pearl’s mixing bowls. A handwritten recipe from my Grandma June—the woman I was named after and whose memory I have only a … Read more

There was a small deli in my hometown called The Happy Horse. Long before I owned it, I worked there as a high school student. At the time it was just a job: a place where I learned how to work hard, move quickly, care for customers, and feel the rhythm of a kitchen during … Read more

I have a shirt in my closet that I truly love. It fits perfectly and the color always brightens my mood. When I put it on, I feel comfortable and confident. And yet, somehow, that’s precisely why I rarely wear it. I save it. For dinners out.For trips.For days when I might see someone important.For … Read more

Certain responsibilities never truly end, and for many of us, dinner is one of them. It’s more than the act of cooking — it’s thinking about what to make, planning meals, shopping for ingredients, remembering to thaw something from the freezer, and cleaning up afterward. Then morning comes, and the cycle begins again. I didn’t … Read more

If you’ve visited Practically Homemade before, you already know I have a soft spot for cake mix. I don’t treat it as a shortcut. I consider it one of the most useful ingredients in my pantry. Over more than three decades of baking from scratch, running a bakery, teaching culinary classes, and developing hundreds of … Read more

For eight years I taught high school culinary arts. And apparently some habits never fully leave you. No matter how much time passes, August still feels like a countdown. This was my culinary classroom.It looked almost exactly the same as it did 25 years earlier, when I sat there as a student. When I was … Read more