Category — tips

Soon after Christmas, we’ll be going to Chicago for a our niece’s wedding.

It’s cold in Chicago! I’m going to be wearing scarves, a lot!

I don’t wear scarves all that often in Sunny AZ, so this video is going to be my go-to guide!

This next video makes it even easier with, step-by-step directions…

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I was overdue for a haircut and color. Long overdue! Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for my hair, and as you can see, I’ve got a lot of it to work with!

People with straight hair don’t always understand why people with curly hair don’t EVER let a comb or brush touch their dry hair.

Curly wet hair may have a comb, brush or even fingers run through it.

Curly dry hair… NO!

Here is why! It turns into a lion’s mane! The erased face belongs to me. The colorist/stylist has to comb out the hair to apply the color, so this is what happens.

Lovely! Nothing is as wonderful as looking in the mirror and seeing Roseanne Roseannadanna staring back at you!

After the color and cut, this is the more manageable and less scary effect. As you can see, I really needed that color. The summer’s highlights had grown out and the result was bad! Welcome winter and warmer color.

That’s it for the “hair” part of the post. The “helpful hint” part is next and was such a revelation that I just have to share.

I was talking to my stylist about how it is possible that she doesn’t get hair dye all over her clothes and what sort of dye she uses. She was telling me that back in school, she got dye on her all the time. But the school uniform was black, so thankfully it didn’t show. She said that the real problem was when bleach got on the black uniform. Then she shared with me that the way to fix that was to just dab on a bit of black hair dye to cover the bleach stain.

What? A stain to cover a stain. Brilliant!

I told her how Connor has two pairs of black chef’s pants, that were not cheap, had accidentally been splashed and splattered with bleach.

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Peggy and I are back from California. Summer travel is pretty much finished for me.

After living in hotel rooms for three of the last four weeks, I would like to share with you my top three hotel room must-haves:

1. Free WiFi. In the room. Not someplace “in the lobby.”

2. A well-lit bathroom, preferably furnished with a lighted magnifying make-up mirror.

3. A minimum of two pillows per person, preferably with an extra one or two.

Obviously, I’m not counting clean and comfortable rooms and courteous and helpful staff as must-haves, those are “you better have that, or I’m not staying here.”

As for my travel tip, it involves your bottles of liquids. I’m sure we all put our liquids in zip-lock bags to prevent them from leaking on our clothes, luggage, and other valuables. Mine still often oozed a bit and leaked in the zip-lock bag.

No more!

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I’ve seen this cool tip for cutting a bunch of cherry tomatoes at one time all over the internet and on Pinterest. I’ve used it for some time now, but keep forgetting to share it with you. It not only comes in handy for this salad but is especially fabulous for THIS RECIPE and any other recipes calling for roasted cherry tomatoes.

Summer Squash and Salmon Salad

1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds zucchini, ends trimmed and then thinly sliced
2 tablespoons pepper jelly
3-pound salmon fillet, skin on
2 cups cherry or grape tomatoes
6 cups fresh spinach leaves
1/2 red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
2 avocados, diced
1 cup chopped pecans

In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper. Add the zucchini, toss to coat and let marinate at room temperature for at least 15 minutes.

Spread the pepper jelly on the flesh side of the salmon. Heat a grill or broiler to high.

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I received an email yesterday from a woman who lives in Alpharetta, GA.

Caroline was thanking me for my “Glossary of Cooking Terms” which can be found under The Basic Kitchen tab, over there on the left side of the page.

She waxed poetic about how educational and informative she found it and that she loved my daily posts as well and how her morning hasn’t truly begun until she has seen my most recent post. It was very sweet and it is the sort of thing that motivates me to keep doing what I do. The fun part is how she came to find my site. It was sent to her by the management office of her apartment complex.

I’ve noticed, for the last 4 months or so, that several different apartment management companies have been linking to my “Glossary” page in their communications to residents. The links have been posted on resident community online newsletters in more than a dozen states, including AL, AR, CA, CO, FL, GA, KY, KS, MD, MO, NC, OK, PA, SC, NC, TN, TX and VA.

The best part of getting the links is reading how the various newsletters from around the country entice their residents to check out my glossary:

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No Friday Funnies today. In their place a “Not At All Funny!”

About this time last year, I bought a housewarming gift for Marissa and Jeff, a beautiful 8×10 Persian-Style Rug from Pottery Barn for their new place.

If I recall correctly, we bought it the first week of June 2013, it was on back-order, so it arrived the last week of June.

Nearly a full year goes by and they are enjoying the rug, all is well. Until the evening of May 4, 2014 (my wedding anniversary, by the way) when I receive a text from Marissa at 9 PM,

“I spilled nail polish on the rug & I don’t know what to do!”

Not yet realizing the rug she was speaking of was The Rug, I reply,

“Reminds me of when I had to replace the carpet in your bedroom with wood floors – I honestly don’t know – you should probably look it up on the internet.”

At this point, I’m really thinking, WTH? This is the 4th time that my otherwise intelligent daughter has spilled (or dropped a full bottle) of nail polish in her short life! When is she going to learn?!? Oh, and Happy Anniversary!

I should mention here that Marissa did call us to wish us a Happy Anniversary, earlier that day and that she had sent a beautiful card. She also went to great lengths to try not to text me about this crisis on my special day, by texting others first, but since they aren’t her mom…they, of course, were no help!

Then she responds, “I did. It said the rug is ruined. 

At that very second, it dawns on me…and I reply, “Exactly where in the house did you do this?”

I get the reply I most dreaded, “The living room. The nice rug.”

“Seriously??? Start blotting it with paper towels. Do Not Rub! Blot!!!”

“I did that.”

“Keep Blotting Until Nothing shows up on the paper towels, then send me a photo. Plus you better lift up the rug and make sure it isn’t seeping through to the wood floors.”

Then I get the next text, with a photo. “Not seeping through. Didn’t want to tell you, but it’s on the leather couch too. I might also need help with that.”

If you have kids, of any age, you know what I was thinking and feeling.

“I’m gonna wring her neck!”

“She drives me to drink!”

and basically, just…

“WTH!?!”

I call her and we agree that she will leave it alone and I will try to take care of it when I visit over Mother’s Day weekend, a short 5 days from then. In other words, Mom To The Rescue. (We agree that the couch is a non-issue because it’s a piece of cr@p that they bought on Craig’s List. It’s not really even leather, more like pleather, so I’m not wasting my time and energy on it.)

We research more and find several sites that suggest using aerosol hairspray or rubbing alcohol to lift out the polish, without lifting out or fading the dyes in the rug. She buys both.

After the full day of Amazing Race San Francisco, the proposal, and dinner with the engaged couple, I give them my hotel suite and I sleep at their place. That evening I get to it and do my best to get the nail polish out without lifting out the dyes on the rug.

Turns out the thing that worked best was the rubbing alcohol. I tried using a rag, paper towels, cotton balls, and cotton facial cleaning pads. The cotton balls worked pretty well, but the cotton facial cleaning pads worked best.

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I’ve finished sharing all my recipes from the Spanish Dinner Party and the menu is now listed on the “Complete Recipe Index” – yet I have one more important tip to share with you.

At the Spanish Dinner Party, I served my Rojo Sangria from this glass beverage server.

Problem was, that the fruit tended to clog the spout.

We solved this problem by providing a spoon that could be put down in the jar and pushed aside the fruit.

Of course, the lid had to be removed to do so. Additionally, the weather that evening was very lovely, which lead to our tendency to leave the door open, as we were dining al fresco

This combination leads to problem number two.

Fruit Flies!

When I entered the kitchen, while clearing the table, I discovered a fruit fly infestation in the open sangria jar! It was disgusting!

I disposed of the remaining sangria, but much to my dismay, a majority of the fruit flies remained.

As a result, here is my tip on how to quickly and efficiently get rid of fruit flies in your home.

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This is the third installment of my Friday Q & A, also known as “Questions from Lori & Answers from Linda.”

Myself, Lori, and Amy

If you recall, my sweet and dearly missed friend, Lori, asked me four detailed questions when I first challenged all of you to pose them to me. Lori stepped up to the plate and I’ve already answered the first and then the second. This is the hardest of the four, but I don’t want to shrink from the task at hand any longer.

Lori and her adorable husband, Jonathan, have been doing business and living in Tokyo, Japan since September 2012. Lori is a fabulous cook and had the most gorgeous, huge, well-equipped, workable, and enviable kitchen imaginable when they lived here in Scottsdale.

This is Lori’s Tokyo kitchen! Can you imagine? When I wrote about how much of a closet Marissa’s San Francisco kitchen was, Lori wrote to say that she envied it, now you can see why! Here is what Lori emailed me at the time:

“I have attached pictures of our charming little Tokyo kitchenette. And when I say “charming” – I use that term in the loosest of senses . . . the charm quickly wore off … and we are left bumping into each other, cursing at each other and are at our wits end to figure out what to cook on our 2 miniscule burner cook top.

No oven (regular, toaster or otherwise) but a decent microwave, but little else to work with in terms of pots, pans or cooking implements. And clean-up! Did you see the size of that dishwasher? Although I have to say it is very àpropos given the fact that we have exactly 4 plates, 4 salads, 4 glasses and cereal bowls.

So, with information and visuals in hand- what the heck would you cook here? Oh-and of course I forgot to mention, there is no access to “normal” foods, spices, condiments, etc. So, Miss Linda – if you were in my slippers and kimono what would you do?”

The exact question Lori put forth on that Friday, three weeks ago, was this:

Is there a way or rule of thumb to adapt any recipes for the oven to a microwave? I literally never used the microwave except for re-heating in the US, and sadly that is all I have to use here in Japan (along with my tiny stove-top).

My problem is that I too, only use the microwave to thaw, melt and reheat food. I do not use it to cook. So onto the cooking, I tested the theories on a few small items, a chicken breast, a rice casserole, and a piece of salmon. I found all the hints and tricks below to be spot on. Lori, I hope this helps. Please keep me (us) posted on any successes and on the failures too! You have a knack for writing amazingly hilarious “fail” stories!

Here are my Dozen best tips for Microwave Cookery

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Tips for Entertaining

or How to be the Hostess with the Mostess

Theme: The jumping-off point for all my entertaining begins with choosing a theme. Some are built-in; holidays, birthdays, and seasonal gatherings. Even then, selecting a color palette helps the event have a cohesive feel and flow and makes planning so much easier. Make a list of what you already own that works with the theme or palette, and then buy or borrow pieces that you want to incorporate.

Make a list of everything you need to get done and set deadlines. Put big, time-consuming projects, such as cleaning the house or tracking down tables and chairs, at the top of your list.

Build menus around dishes you already know how to make and are comfortable with, and then add one or two new recipes.

Prepare as much as possible ahead of time, so you’re able to relax and enjoy your party! Many recipes have “do ahead” notes. But even if the recipe you’re using doesn’t, get into the habit of thinking about what can be prepared ahead. If you’re not sure, search online for a similar recipe and see if it has “do ahead” notes.

If you’re still at a loss, drop me a line and I’ll help you figure it out.

Do not be afraid to take short-cuts with store-bought items.

I do it. All. The. Time.

I am not a baker, so I’ll buy dessert from a bakery or I’ll just pick up a variety of little sweets from Trader Joe’s. Trust me, your guests will remember how much fun they had, not if you made your own pie crust or used a store-bought crust.

Have a Signature Cocktail. It sets the tone for the evening. It lets your guests know you went to a bit of extra effort. Even if it’s just a glass of champagne with a splash of juice and a berry added, it makes a statement. Have the drinks set on a tray at the entry? Add a little sign, such as: “Welcome, please enjoy our Signature Cocktail – Rojo Sangria”

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With holiday baking in full swing, I wanted to share a tip with you that I’ve used for years, more times than I’d like to admit.

Don’t you hate it when you open your container of brown sugar, only to find a rock-hard, impenetrable, tough-as-nails substance? Yeah, see those white patches in my sugar above? That’s where I could barely scratch the surface with the metal measuring cup.

I was able to chisel out a chunk. I then “grated” the sugar rock with a strainer into the bottom of the baking dish for THIS recipe. If I would have needed the brown sugar to be mixed with other ingredients, as it is in chocolate chip cookies, I would have called my sweet neighbor, “Gladys,” asking to borrow sugar.

How many times has this happened to you?

If you’re a non-baker like me, more often than you would like to recall. What do you do when it occurs?

Begrudgingly, jump in the car and head to the grocery store?
Call a Gladys to “borrow” sugar?
Throw the brown rock sugar away?

Well, No More!

If you’re in a real pinch and are at mid-point in your recipe, you still may want to call Gladys. But you’ll be able to pay her back a few hours later when you’ve revived the rock sugar in that container.

Here is the trick that works.

Every! Time!

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