Chew on these stories...

As it is with even the best of planners, sometimes things just don't click, and you need to come bearing food for an event you forgot to (or really hadn't) plan(ned) for. No one likes be that jerk that brings a token bottle of soda and bag of chips to a potluck and/or picnic. With just a few pantry staples you can save your rep and quickly bring together a quality deli-style pasta salad that will keep you off the a-hole list.

When I was a kid, I really didn't care for art time when it involved that certain type of modeling compound sold in the little plastic tins. Without getting into details, I'll just say that I am in the camp that find the smell absolutely revolting. As a dad, I find the commercial stuff overpriced and the clean-up is often tedious. That said, the kids love it; so I figure that if we're gonna use it, we might as well get the most out of our time and make it too. After trying a few different formulas, I've settled on using a recipe that employs another relic from my childhood (oh yeah!) to give our homemade play…

Cranberry sauce is for so much more than holiday dinners. It's a condiment that's not prejudice to sweet or savory. Cranberry sauce is as much at home spooned over a scoop of vanilla ice cream as it is piled beside a big ol' slab of roast turkey. Even as a kid, I always preferred the whole-berry type as opposed to that all-gel fruit equivalent of Spam. Whole-berry cranberry sauce is versatile, flexible and easy to prepare. Save a bag of berries, there's no excuse not to bypass the can. This particular recipe is balanced in so many ways: Sweet, tangy, and tart are all in equilibrium, and the spreadable consistency is spot-on courtesy of the abundance of natural pectins in the cranberry.