liv bites

Remember when I described my lunches comprised of quinoa and veggies and bragged that I never get tired of them? Well, I finally did, so I made some hummus. I rarely eat hummus anymore because my assistant is allergic to legumes, but making it myself reminded me how much I adore it. In fact, before [...]

I was flipping through my new Southern Living the other morning before work, and my coffee cup stopped en route to my lips when I saw their featured seasonal ingredient. I love fresh figs, and it seems like they are one of those tricky fruits that’s only good for about a second out of the [...]

Although most people imagine Mississippi as a hub for consuming grits, my mom only makes them once a year, at Christmas brunch. Along with about a hundred other side and main dishes, she whips up her version of gruyère grits that I adore, topped with mouth-watering grillades that take her all day to make (it’s [...]

I tend to blog about my farmer’s market creations more than my grocery store ones, probably because I’m just more excited about the former. Aisles of flour and dishwashing detergent don’t do too much for me. But on Saturday my assistant and I built a lunch entirely based on our findings at the market, a [...]

I realized recently that I’ve written about a million posts on my dinner experiments, but almost none on my lunches. That’s, of course, because I’m always eating lunch at work — and meals just aren’t as much of a to-do when you’re enjoying them in front of a computer. Still, I actually put a decent [...]

Heirloom tomatoes might just be my favorite thing about living in California. 

I was craving a burger a few nights ago, but I decided to buy ground lamb instead of beef to make things more interesting. With the lamb came the opportunity to turn an all-American classic into a Mediterranean meal, so I went with it. Except that I think hamburgers are actually originally German. Sigh. I [...]

My assistant and I were lucky enough to spend the majority of the past week with his mom in Miami, where it’s perpetually 80 degrees, sunny and all-around beach worthy. And while the produce we get in Northern California is hard to top, Florida does a pretty good job of competing — and not just [...]

My dad was the first person to introduce me to spaghetti squash a few years ago, when he talked about it as if it were magic. “You throw it in the oven for a little while, and it comes out in these long strands. Like noodles!” he said incredulously. Needless to say, I developed a [...]

One of my favorite restaurants in my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi is an uber-casual Greek spot called Keifer’s, located downtown. In high school, all of my friends (even the ones who lived half an hour away) would trek down for the sole purpose of indulging in their favorite Pita Mozz or Pita Feta — depending [...]