This Stop Willoughby

Grab your car keys and head on over to your local farmer's market......or roadside produce stand.....or berry farm.....or supermarket.  Wherever you can get some gorgeous fresh summer berries, you need to go right now.  It will be worth the trip.  Promise.  This dessert is so simple and quick to make that you can whip it up shortly before the guests arrive to your cookout.  For Father's Day, we made it with a combination of raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, but you can use whatever berries you like best.  Be sure to taste your berries and adjust the amount of sugar accordingly (ours were a bit tart, we used about 3/4 cup sugar).  Serve warm with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Grab a partner (because the whole point is to have fun cooking with someone you love), pour a few glasses of your favorite beverage and turn on some great music. Let's get cooking!   Mixed Berry Cobbler Fruit laye...

We spend a lot of time outside in the summer.  Whether we're doing yard work, swimming, or just hanging out, we've almost always got music playing.  During the daytime our music of choice is usually alternative or rock.  At nighttime, we like to slow things down a little and listen to something more mellow.  The problem is, we've been listening to the same playlist for a long time.  I need to add some new selections to it but I keep drawing a blank when I try to think of what that would be.    Sometimes there will be a small group of people having coffee and dessert and we need some relaxed after dinner music.  The age range could be anywhere from children to grandparents, so there would be a vast array of musical tastes. Other times, it's just Mr. Willoughby and me, sitting at the bar enjoying a glass of wine.  We'll usually have dozens of candles lit, so the setting is rather romantic, but we're not necessarily looking fo...

This is a quick and easy dish to make at the end of a busy summer day.  With two cooks working together, you'll have the prep done in minutes.  If you want to speed it up even more, don't bother to measure the ingredients for the shrimp marinade.  A drizzle, a squeeze and a few dashes will do just fine.  You'll still end up with amazingly flavorful shrimp.  We use a perforated grilling pan to cook ours (it sits on top of the grill grate and keeps smaller foods from falling into the fire), but if you don't have one, you can thread the shrimp onto skewers. For the Caesar dressing, we've given you the classic recipe which includes a raw egg yolk, but we've included the substitute amount of mayonnaise.  If you're uncomfortable using raw egg, go ahead and use the mayo.  You won't lose any flavor in the bargain. Speaking of flavor, we're begging you not to eliminate the anchovies.  Yes, they're a little creepy looking jammed toge...

It's never easy to say goodbye to a dear friend, but sometimes you have no choice.  You have to make tough decisions and do what is best for your buddy no matter how much it hurts. We found ourselves in that very position Tuesday night.  We were sitting on the back porch, enjoying some time with our friend when she suddenly lost the ability to turn to the right.  Despite our attempts to lure her out of the corner, she huddled there, weak and vulnerable.  It was difficult to accept that the time had come to "pull the plug", although we've known this day was coming for some time.   We've been enjoying her company since the day we discovered her, among her brothers and sisters, at a local store.  Other shoppers passed by them without so much as a glance, but for us, it was love at first sight.  She was practically begging us to give her a good home.  If we had known how much we would love her, we would probably have taken her siblings...

Congrats to Polly from The 5th Sister !  You have won a $50 Novica gift card!  Have fun shopping!

I use a laptop now, but we used to have a big desktop computer.  One day, just after picking up my daughter from preschool, I smelled something burning.  When I walked into the office, smoke was pouring out of the computer.  I unplugged it and left it alone until the smoke finally cleared.  That night, when Mr. W opened the CPU to see what had happened, he found that all the plastic components had melted.  It seems I had discovered the situation moments before it burst into flames.  I can only imagine what would have happened if we hadn't come straight home from school that day. More than losing the computer, I was upset about all the files that were lost along with it.  I hadn't thought to save anything on disc (I don't think flash drives were available at the time).  We had countless hours of music files, personal files and, most precious of all, hundreds of family pictures. Over the weekend, my son was looking through a box of CDs, mos...