Chocolate waffles.

If I don’t think in themes, I don’t think. Let’s eat at this waffle jointI insisted when shopping with my daughter for her upcoming right-of-passage trip to Europe. A stopover in Brussels inspired, you guessed it, a theme. Belgium – waffles ,Trask, radio. No ordinary waffle joint that dots the LA landscape, this standing room only cove in Santa Monica even has healthy options for mom’s metabolism. Do you eat vicariously through your skinny children too? Curse. My son fell in love with chocolate waffles and has been begging for them ever since.

I found this low-sugar, high flavorchocolate waffle recipe. Cocoa enriches the flavor while a 50/50 balance of white and wheat flours limits refined starches. No need for syrup with a light, and I mean light, dusting of powdered sugar and a slippery cascade of sliced strawberries.

Make a double batch and freeze the rest for toaster waffles on another day.

We are back in business after months of remodeling and the perpetual dust cloud that prevented any real bout of cooking. One can’t complain when the prize was a newfangled kitchen island. What’s wrong with the person who gets more excited about a suspension shelf to hold her KitchenAid mixer she’s had longer than her tweenager, than she does about a two-story addition to the house? If my husband only knew better, a shelf might have sufficed. There’s been one more distraction – this girl and the bittersweet parenting moment that is high school graduation. I beam and ache (yay-ouch).

Bucatini all’Amatriciana, a fancy way of saying spaghetti with pancetta and spice. Popular with chefs like Mario Batallia who explains its origins, but I found this uber-easy recipe:Bon Appetit. Using salty porks to punch up flavor rather than a heavy main course, keeps salt and fat properties in check, but doesn’t rob you of their luscious flavors.

The real reason for serving up authentic Italian fare is for my friends Kate and David who get married this week in Umbria. I leave Monday to meet up with these friends and this friend to witness, toast, and celebrate the nuptials of two people who exemplify love.

You can make Indian spiced cauliflower soup, and you should it’s that good, healthy and low-cal.

A habit brews in my refrigerator. Buying cauliflower with the intention of eating it raw to get my cruciferous on, and time after time it turns brown before I can eat one more bite. Another soup to the rescue, yet this recipe is so good it deserves more purpose than saving a nearly turned vegetable from the garbage graveyard.

Vegetable miracle worker, Alice Waters, author of my almost favorite cookbook, brings cauliflower to life with a decent blend of simple Indian spices topped with a Greek yogurt dollop and shards of mint. Exotic flavors abound. read more

Loving the breakfast cookie trend – take a bite of this, this, and this– kids think they’re getting something decadent for breakfast and you exert nothing more than a freezer-to-microwave maneuver. Carnival Cookies, they’re called and are the brilliant creation from natural food cookbookauthor, Heidi Swanson. The thing about Heidi, if you don’t know, is her commitment to ingredients that are as clean as possible. And many of her recipes are gluten-free. You might have to pick up a few ingredients that most definitely are not in the average pantry, but well worth the effort as we lean into unprocessed diets. I offer replacements, but dare you to try coconut oil or almond meal. read more

We were skiing with my sister and her family in this townand for a last-minute dinner she pulled out homemade tuna burgers from the freezer. Maybe my expectations were low, maybe my appetite was high, maybe it was the altitude, but I devoured this previously-frozen protein that she cooked up in a flash. Talk about dinner options at your fingertips. When I returned home, it was all I could do to hunt down the recipe andfreezing supplies to have the same luxurious meal available in my kitchen. Not can share with youanother genius ideafrom my sister(and her friend John with the help of their friend Gwyneth, the goop, Paltrow): gourmet burgers prepared in batches and vac-sealed for later. read more