A couple of years ago I received a truffle slicer (and a few truffles) as a gift. The slicer worked fine for the truffles, but I found that it can also come in handy for other things. It’s great for making chocolate shavings and to thinly slice garlic.

Fresh herbs can add great flavors to food. If you don’t have them in your garden, check the produce department at your supermarket and give them a try. Here are a few ideas…
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If you have herbs in your garden, you can make your own combination of fine herbs, which is a mixture of finely chopped herbs, usually chervil, chives, parsley and tarragon. It’s best to add this mixture at the end of cooking time to get the best flavor from them. Making a mixture from fresh herbs is always better than the bottled dried ones.

It’s best to peel beets while they’re still hot. Hold the beet with a kitchen towel. Cut away the stem and then peel away the skin.

The weather in south Louisiana has been fantastic the last few days—ideal for grilling. I slapped a salmon fillet, drizzled with olive oil, a splash of fresh lemon juice, and seasoned with a little salt and pepper, on the grill together with mixed vegetable kabobs. Easy enough…
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Having worked, many moons ago, for one of the largest coffee-roasting companies of New Orleans I am always amazed at the mishandling of coffee by friends. Coffee will begin to go stale as soon as you open the package or can so it’s important to store it properly.
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Because I had a chunk of lamb roast, a couple of grilled pork chops. and a link of smoked sausage left over from Easter dinner, I wanted to come up with some ideas for their use. Bingo, I thought of using them in a cassoulet. Easy enough.
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I was away from home for a few days and returned to find that my husband had done spring cleaning in the pantry. It certainly needed it.
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Baking soda has many uses other than for baking. I was reminded of several when I read the April 2005 issue of Real Simple magazine.
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My sister, the egg-dyeing queen in our family, spends the better part of Holy Saturday coloring dozens of eggs for our family’s annual Easter egg hunt.
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