As I was hurrying to get everything in order before we left for vacation, my MIL baked up a loaf of my pumpkin bread from the cookbook -- something we could take on the plane to nibble on. (Our total travel time was 27 hrs!).

I was busy looking for my long lost snow glove when I caught a wiff of pumpkin bliss wandering into my bedroom. I poked my head out the door and said "Are you baking something?!" 

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Shortly after my MIL arrived in St. Maarten, she peeked into our fridge and remarked at how much tofu we have. "Yeah, it's kind of a necessity around here... your son is a glutton for tofu." I explained.

"Well, what do you do with it?" she asked. She told me she'd had it deep fried with peanut sauce at a restaurant, and it was alright, but obviously not very healthy.

"OMG! Tofu is the most universal ingredient ever!" …

I have a fat-free vegan French toast recipe here on HH that I just love (--and it made it into the cookbook!) but I decided to shake things up a little bit and add some "variations" to the original.... like "egg nog" and "gingerbread" for the cookbook.

I served this up to my MIL her first morning visiting us in St. Maarten and although she's generally not a sweets person, especially in the morning -- she really loved this …

A friend of mine tried to convince me that "potato salad is like meatloaf.... you only like your moms" (and thus, I shouldn't bother trying to make a recipe for my cookbook). I frowned. "That's not really true, is it?" I asked. "Well, have you ever been really happy with any potato salad you ate out? at a deli, I mean?" 

He had a point. Sure I'd had some here and there that were alright... but if you …

I didn't include a single salad recipe in my cookbook for two reasons. First, there is this awful stereotype that vegans and vegetarians live on salads. Any time someone says something along the lines of "so what do you eat, salads?" I die a little inside. Or even worse, "Of course you can eat here, we have a salad on the menu" because a bowl of iceburg lettuce is so delicious and filling!

So... with a little attitude, I intentionally …