There’s been a ton discussion over at thekitchn.com recently about fritatta (the omelet like dish popular in many European countries).  As a small child my mother prepared a fritatta as a quick weekend meal, and now as an adult I make frittata about every week (it’s nourishing, full of flavor, and can usually be prepared with whatever leftovers one has in the fridge). […]

WiseBread.com recently released a list of the top 165 personal finance web sites.  WiseBread used traffic, incoming blog links, RSS subscribers, link authority, and Compete scores to determine the rankings.  The chart is also updated on daily basis so you can actually re-visit the chart each day and see different sites move up and down in the rankings. Personal finance […]

According to the Journal of Consumer Research, “shoppers pay a disproportionate amount of attention to the leftmost digits in prices and these leftmost digits impact whether a product’s price is perceived to be relatively affordable or expensive” In one experiment, the researchers took two price points ($2.00 and $4.00) and lowered one price by one cent turning $4.00 into $3.99 and […]

I love making salads from leftovers in the refrigerator and because we are now in a recession I can tell you all about it and not feel cheap!   Here’s a salad I put together yesterday and it was not only incredibly tasty, but it filled me up way past my regular dinner time. Ingredients: – 1 head of Romaine lettuce […]

(All photos: I posted the three photos above/below for a reason; namely, to demonstrate that, from a US perspective, my family members had a pretty tough life in 1950’s – 60’s Calabria.  However, if you look beyond the conditions in the photos and through the linen shirts that acted as work uniforms, you see happy people in tight knit groups […]

Every person has a series of products that they can’t live without when it comes to their home.  For many, it’s a flat screen TV or a backyard Jacuzzi, but being the practical guy that I am my list includes a stainless steel stove and fleece blanket!  Don’t laugh because I can hear you, have a look at my top […]

Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher have been reviewing wines via the Wall Street Journal’s column Tastings for 11 years (now that’s a lot of bottles!).  A recent Wall Street Journal article summarizes Tastings’ readers most asked questions; Dorothy and John have received over 1000 questions about wines and most of them, they state, can be summarized via the following 11 […]

Five Ways To Save Money At A Sporting Event  Excerpt: **This is a guest post by Jeff Rose. In my hometown, one of the things that my wife and I enjoy doing is going to see our former alma mater battling it out on the basketball court.  I’m sure most can relate to attending a similar event, whether it be […]

The upcoming Oscars Award show always gets everyone in the movie-going spirit and why not it’s fun to plan a night at your local theatre taking in a good movie followed by a late night meal and a glass of good Zindfandel!  But wait, hold on, are you really going to spend $20+ dollars for tickets, $15+ dollars on snacks, […]

My wife has been an avid reader of KathEats.com for well over a year and raves about her real world recipes and outstanding food photos.  Being a dyed-in-the-wool foodie I took my wife’s enthusiasm as a sign to visit Kath’s site and I had a mini-revelation: good, practical, food can, indeed, make you look and feel great!   As someone […]