Stories of Thanksgiving fails. Experiences eating tasteless, dried out turkey. Enough to strike terror in the heart of anyone about to embark on a Thanksgiving dinner in their home. My solution? A smoked turkey that you simply reheat.     What's your secret to low stress holiday celebrations?  

( updated September 27, 2023 ) Depending where you're from, BBQ is sure to get a crowd fired up. Just try to convince a Texan that Kansas City, Memphis, or Carolina Style BBQ is the best--I guarantee you're sure to see fireworks. Sadly in the San Francisco Bay Area, Texas BBQ is in short supply--rotisserie is more our style. So when I've got a craving, I head to my Texas favorites and have the BBQ shipped.     After years of getting Texas BBQ shipped, here are my top 8 places to get Texas BBQ shipped to your door. Along with my favorites, I'm sharing tips for ensuring your Texas BBQ arrives in time for your special occasion.   How do you like your BBQ? Dry rub or Sauce? Texas, Kansas City, Memphis, or Carolina Style?     Read on for my favorite meats along with the places in Texas to get them shipped from!  

There's something unctuous about lamb. Paired with Moroccan and Turkish spices and a full-bodied wine like Cultivar Coombsville Cabernet Sauvignon it's a sumptuous treat. In the summer, I stuffed sweet peppers with lamb and tomatoes. Now in the fall, I'm filling portobello mushrooms with apple and lamb.    

As a participant in the Walmart to Go First program, I’ve received a personal invite and payment for my time and efforts in creating this post. Convenience and ice cream don't go together when you're allergic to cow's milk. If you want any flavor other than chocolate or vanilla, you're often left to your own devices to make it. So, you can imagine how excited I was when I discovered Walmart To Go had all of the base ingredients for gluten-free, vegan ice cream, in stock and ready to deliver to my door.     Have you thrown an ice cream social before?   In the past I've made gluten-free, vegan ice cream using my Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. Sometimes it would come out rich and creamy, and other times with an odd texture and little flavor. This time I decided to abandon my ice cream maker and freeze my ice cream in a stainless steel bowl and taking it out of the freezer and blending with a hand mixer and refreezing for a few hours. And... it worked like a charm.  ...

SPONSORED POST: This is a paid post. The Road to The Good Life chose to work with La Crema Winery for their dedication to handcrafted wines at reasonable prices. All opinions presented are my own.   Events that are fun to be at have a few things in common: a stress free hostess, thoughtful details, and the right mix of outgoing individuals and introverts. Planning (before and during the event) is the the secret to a stress free hostess. And key to getting guests to mingle and relax is a theme that's emphasized with carefully chosen decor and party printables such as name tags and decor. There's something about planning and a theme that ties an event together, even a casual get together, and takes it to the next level and ensures everyone has fun.     Choosing a Mascot With events at The Station, a mascot of sorts is developing: an elephant. For Gates' birthday, it was a Tuppertoy elephant . For last Tuesday's Girls Night In, it was an elephant candle holder.   Th...

SPONSORED POST: This is a paid post. The Road to The Good Life chose to work with La Crema Winery for their dedication to handcrafted wines at reasonable prices. All opinions presented are my own.   Time gets away from the best of us. Long periods of it can pass in between seeing friends. I don't know about you but it's a constant juggling act handling the day-to-day activities, work, blogging, family, and friends. One or more things, often getting together with friends, falls by the wayside. To maximize time with friends and reduce the planning and organizing and cost, I'm all about activities that get everyone involved. Lately my favorite girls nights are girls nights in where we gather in the kitchen.     I first stumbled on the benefits of having your guests help you in the kitchen when I lived in Texas. I'd lost track of time and hadn't started three of the four courses we'd be eating for dinner. My guests, Texas Hill Country vintners, opened a bottle of...

SPONSORED POST: This is a paid post. The Road to The Good Life chose to work with La Crema Winery for their dedication to handcrafted wines at reasonable prices. All opinions presented are my own.   Ever notice how parties always seem to end up in the kitchen? So, why fight it? If you have girlfriends who like to cook, invite them into your kitchen and start the party there.     Two of my favorite appetizers that lend themselves well to an effortless Girls Night In and accommodate a variety of allergies are Vietnamese Spring Rolls and Tom Yum Soup. The key to this effortless Girls Night is the flexibility of both appetizers. All ingredients can be prepared the night before, or earlier in the day. Store each separately in air tight containers in your refrigerator to preserve the flavors. If you're running short on time, set up chopping stations and have your girlfriends help wash and slice the ingredients.     About ten minutes before your guests arrive (or ...

There are times when we all would prefer a home cooked meal at the end of a long day, yet are too tired to even begin thinking about making it. Prepping everything ahead of time, similar to what restaurants do, will have you eating in more often. If you're lucky, you'll even find your swing.     Swing: the hard-to-define feeling when near-perfect synchronization of motion occurs in the shell, enhancing the overall speed and performance. ( Source )   In college, I was a coxswain for the men's rowing team. At practice, our coach often spoke of swing, something that we as a team should aspire to. For a Type A personality it was as if a gauntlet had been thrown down. But that was the irony of swing. The more you tried. The more you forced. The less achievable swing was. Swing required you to let go. To simply be in the moment.   I never raced, but I did experience swing. I was a novice coxswain so to have achieved swing with a crew speaks more to the experience of ...

Throwing a party and want an effortless (or almost effortless), unforgettable spread of food? Visit your local farmer's market.     For me, my market is the Mission Community Market (MCM), just a few blocks away every Thursday from 4 to 8pm. And, with the exception of our main course, all of the food from Gates' birthday party came from MCM vendors.     With Gates' birthday falling during Passover, our spread needed to be Passover friendly. If you're not familiar with Passover foods, the biggest thing to know is that flour is out, and for Ashkenazi Jews, beans and anything made with them. As soy is in almost everything, for example soy lecithin is in most chocolate, it means you need to get creative. My solution was to head to the Mission Community Market and pull a spread together from the vendor's offerings. While we didn't have a cake for the celebration no one left the table hungry.     Here's what we ate: Feta cheese from Achadinha Cheese Compa...

I love Jewish cooking. I don't know if this is because most dishes are dairy-free (if you're kosher, you don't eat dairy and meat together at the same meal and wait between eating them) or if because Jewish foods are comfort foods. Either way I love Jewish cooking. Passover though throws a couple of wrenches into cooking for me. Some of my regular goto dairy substitutes, such as Earth Balance, are off limits.     A little overwhelmed planning your Passover menu? Bon Appetit has eleven from modern to traditional. Fine Cooking has a traditional Passover menu complete with recipes, grocery list, and meal preparation notes. When sourcing your ingredients, a good resource to figure out which ones are ok or not for Passover is OU Kosher's website . They cover what's ok for Passover and which ingredients while ok for Passover are off limits if you're Ashkenazi ( Kitniyot List ).     I've rounded up some recipes that I'm considering for Passover. They...

Purim is like Carnivale for Jews. It's a holiday where you're encouraged to excess. The most traditional treat for Ashkenazi Jews is Hamantaschen. Most recipes are sweet, but for cubes, who prefers savory to sweet, I've included a mix in my recipe roundup.     You might be curious why there's so many baked goods available at Purim. The easy answer is Passover is coming. Before Passover starts, all chametz (leavening) needs to be removed from the kitchen. (Ashkenazi have the strictest definition of chametz, which includes rice, corn, and beans!) To avoid waste, bakers attempt to use up all of their flour to avoid having to throw it out. The result? Tons of desserts.   Want to try making Hamantaschen for yourself? Here are a few recipes sure to please anyone's tastebuds (from top left clockwise): Easy Hamantaschen Recipe Chocolate-Dipped Hamantaschen Eggless Hamantaschen Step-by-step Butter-based Hamantaschen For those who aren't fans of sweets, some savor...

When I entertain I want everything just so. With a full-time job, traffic, and an active 9 month old, that's not always possible. Here's how I make hosting stress free (or less stressful).     Take out.   I forget which television shows have had a hostess opening her door to receive delivery and then feverishly plating the contents and disposing of the containers. I know there have been a few. While you laugh at the time, part of you thinks what a clever idea.   Gates caught a cold over Christmas, which I promptly went on to catch as well. Why am I telling you this? Because I'd planned to host a pot luck New Year's Eve dinner at our house, with me cooking the main course. Rather than cancel the evening, I mean, heck, New Year's Eve only comes once a year, I served take out.   I didn't hide the changed menu from my guests, that was the one part of the television show scenario that didn't sit right with me, I told them. So on New Year's Eve with Gates ...