When things are going as planned at home, I cook five or six nights per week (all bets are off during baseball season!). Because I’m cooking a good 300 nights a year, roughly, I am always looking for inspiration in the kitchen, particularly in the form of that one dish that every family...

When my son went in for his seven-year checkup, I was shocked to learn that he had gained 15 pounds from the previous year’s visit. (He had also grown four inches, but that was overshadowed in my mind by the other number.) Fifteen pounds is a lot for anyone to gain in a year, but for...

Education is a hot topic these days, from funding cuts to the controversial school-voucher system to the myriad problems with high-stakes testing. While the Texas Legislature has a number of education-related bills in the pipeline for the 2013 session (151 to be exact), all the legislation in...

“Why didn’t anyone tell me that there was a movie out that was made JUST FOR ME?” crowed my friend Erin as we departed the movie theatre on Friday night. “I feel so special!” The movie in question is Beautiful Creatures, the movie based on the YA thriller that...

I have a lot of friends who are quite into canning. In fact, a couple of them make their living preserving and canning food, of which I am deeply in awe. I have had good intentions of putting up seasonal fruit in the past — several pounds of blackberries I picked last spring are still in...