A Supertaster's Sanctuary

Oh, friends, how I miss having time to blog whenever I want to. Looking for a job while managing a household and keeping up with social and volunteer commitments has consumed much more time than I expected this season. And, of course, I'm always in the kitchen--just not always near the computer, too! So, this week I've been lamenting like crazy where I live. I heard about snow in Colorado (with ski slopes already open), and on Facebook everyone is talking about the changing of the leaves and gorgeous fall colors and cooler temps! Meanwhile I'm residing in a hot and sticky bayou with 95 degrees to enjoy! Yuch! However, God shone His love on me today with the blowing in of a cold front and rain. It has felt like fall ever since, and what did I immediately start doing? Why, baking pumpkin treats and putting on a pot of chili, of course! I have tried to tweak a pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipe for many seasons now, and today I finally think I got pretty close to perfect (it...

Well, the end of summer and back to school got the best of me! I haven't blogged in over a month and I'm so, so sorry. My sister-in-law had to get after me on facebook about this! I guess that is sort of like a fan, isn't it? Our husbands (my younger brother and her brother-in-law aka my husband) are currently in Alaska together with my dad and my older brother and his son, all hunting Caribou! I'm not exactly sure how to cook anything Caribou, so that will be an interesting blog in the future, I'm sure! During the time I've been off the computer, I must admit I saw the new film, Julie & Julia twice! It is hands-down now my most favorite movie of all time. It's just that good. I went by myself for the first viewing and laughed and cried through the whole thing. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for?? I took my mom when she was in town last week, and she loved it just as much as I expected her to. I was so excited to get to be the per...

Well, the "dog days of summer" are definitely still upon us here in Houston. It is strange depending on who you talk to in what part of the country this year: NYC has had record-setting rains, it has been unseasonably cool in my cousin's neck of the woods in Minnesota, and we are experiencing a severe drought in the Hill Country and Coastal Plains of Texas. I am more and more intrigued with the global warming trends as they unfold before us. It definitely makes me want to be a better caretaker of this beautiful Earth God has so graciously bestowed upon us! I certainly e njoyed a beautiful perspective of this planet a week ago when my superstar husband whisked me away for a fabulous weekend at a luxury resort on the Yucatan Peninsula. We are pictured here in North America's first official water cellar (housing top class brands from 15 countries) in their AAA 4- Diamond award winning gourmet restaurant, La Canoa. T he Yucatan is simply one of our favorites, having spent...

I must say it is very hot, humid and sticky here in my little corner of the world. I have to whine just a bit that I gave up a beautiful swimming pool in our home in the Dallas area last year to move so that we could all be together as a family. Hubby had been commuting for over a year and we just missed him too much. Thus, I traded away that pool for a gorgeous new house in Houston with a fabulous kitchen (remember, I have a gas cooktop now--hooray!). So now we have a pretty empty back yard but I can cook to my heart's desire. It's only during these awful summer months that the trade-off truly makes me sad, and it has invoked much reminiscing of late about summer days as a child. That Panhandle town where I grew up is small. Some people say it's not the end of the world but you can see it from there! Basically it was just a simple community of primarily agricultural folks, with a grand total population of just under 7,000 when we moved there in January of 1977. I was 10 y...

Hello fellow foodies! I'm excited for our next installment which I've been thinking about all week. There are so many ideas and recipes I'm wanting to share with all of you. But first, I must take a moment to thank all my friends and family for the kind emails and Facebook postings complimenting my blog. It's exciting to see how far around the world the written word travels these days in such a rapid fashion! So this week I really wanted to be sure I clarified for those still in question what a "supertaster" truly is. There's tons of information on the internet these days about this phenomenon that was evidently originally studied/discovered by Dr. Linda Bartoshuk of Yale University. "The 'neon taste world' of people who Dr. Bartoshuk calls 'supertasters' is roughly three times as intense as the 'pastel world' of the nontasters. This is because the tongues of supertasters have a higher concentration of taste bud-containing stru...

Hello friends, family and fellow foodies ! And welcome to the inaugural posting of my new blog, sharing my memories and musings through my passion and love for food. I'm Andrea Siebert Peterson, a 43 year old suburban mom with a business degree and hours toward a masters. My 22+ years experience in the working world revolve around business operations and meetings & events management in the real estate industry and non-profit sectors. I have been married to my college sweetheart for 22+ years and we enjoy raising 2 beautiful daughters who are rapidly forcing us into "empty nesthood." Family is a huge part of our lives as I'm the eldest daughter in a group of 7 children. Being raised in mid-western and then Texas Panhandle farm communities, it's no small wonder I've probably spent more working hours in the kitchen than any other room in the house! After a fairly recent corporate layoff, I have been trying to find my new niche in the working world. No matter...