November 19, 2011

Holiday Gift Guide for the Home Culinarian

                                                                                                                                                              Photo Courtesy Bugs and Fishes

Holiday gift shopping can be tough, especially when you have an aspiring home chef, entertainer or gourmet in your life.  How do you know what they already have, or would love and use in the kitchen?  I mean, you may be Santa, but your elves are probably on permanent vacation.  There are so many days when I wish I had a staff of elves.  Anyway…

As an avid home cook myself, I compiled this list categorized by price (because let’s face it, we all have different gift budgets).  There’s also some creative stocking stuffers and gifts to get kids in the kitchen.

I handpicked these gifts from some of my favorite retailers and artists, including Williams-Sonoma Cookware, Anthropologie, Sur La Table, DEAN & DELUCA, artist Carrol Boyes, Amazon, Crate & Barrel, UncommonGoods and more. Each item is available online to make your holiday shopping a little easier.

Whether you’re shopping for friends, family or, ahem…yourself, these gifts will inspire your home cook to create all kinds of goodness in the kitchen.

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Author: Adrienne | Categories: Leftovers | Comments: 3
November 1, 2011

Lynnae’s Gourmet Pickles

There’s nothing I love more than a  family business success story.  Even better, a local (to me) Tacoma family business.

I work in a family business myself, and I know the joys and challenges of working with family.  It seems to me that the ladies of Lynnae’s Gourmet Pickles have got it figured out and are producing a mighty fine pickle, one jar at a time.

I have a confession.  I lead a double life.  A Big Mouthful is my food blog  mainly focused on recipes.  And then there’s Tacoma Foodie, a Twitter and Facebook I maintain to fulfill my local food and restaurant fix.  This is how I found about Lynnae’s Gourmet Pickles, and I thought I’d share it with you, O’ Big Mouthful reader.

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Author: Adrienne | Categories: Leftovers | Comments: 1
October 21, 2011

Why I Love Pinterest (And Why You Should, too!)

A few weeks ago, I joined Pinterest.  I know it’s been around for a while, and lots of savvy folks are already pinning away.

If you don’t know what it is, Pinterest “… lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes”.

It’s a visual paradise of pretty things, helpful tips, DIY projects, funny quotes and recipes, recipes and more recipes.

Maybe it’s because I’m a Virgo, and Virgos typically like to have choices, explore and bring very specific things into their lives.  But I am really loving Pinterest, not only for my personal fancies, but also for blogging.  Here’s why:

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Author: Adrienne | Categories: Leftovers | Comments: 8
October 12, 2011

Will Bake For Food 2011

What fun!  I’m going to be participating in Will Bake for Food, a food blogger bake sale to help fight hunger in our community!  The event is November 12, 2011 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. (or until we run out of goodies) at the University Heights Center in Seattle.

The blogger-run bake sale will be benefiting the Emergency Feeding Program, which provides food to families in the Seattle and King County area, with almost half of their meals going to children.

Last year was a great success, and here are the stats:

  • 1631 items sold by 54 bakers, including 108 cupcakes, 82 whoopie pies, 473 cookies, and 150 vanilla beans
  • 2 drink dudes who pulled 138 cups (55 coffee, 83 cider) in 90 minutes
  • 300 people through the door in under 2 hours
  • about 20 volunteers who made the event sing
  • 1903lbs of food and $946
So fabulous!  I’m looking forward to being part of such an awesome event.  I have some tasty recipes in mind that I will share in another post!
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Author: Adrienne | Categories: Leftovers | Comments: 2
October 11, 2011

My Top 110 Favorite Food-Related Twitter Handles to Follow

Since joining Twitter in 2009, I have had the pleasure of following some of the most informative, interesting, sweet and funny folks.  These are the Twitter handles that keep me in the know and entertained on a daily basis.  They are in no particular order — the below are merely my favorite 110 to follow from @aBigMouthful. Why 110?  I just couldn’t narrow it down to 100.

Ranging from food blogs, to chefs, restaurants, general food lovers, cookbook authors, food critics, food writers, food sites, food stylists and food photographers, these fine people represent some of the best of the Twitterverse.

This is just a sampling of those I follow.  There are many, many more that I follow that I adore.  You can see the full list on my Twitter page.

Happy following!  {And tweeting}

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Author: Adrienne | Categories: Leftovers | Comments: 5
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