Kate Flaim (Girl Reporter)

Sorry it’s been quiet around here: It’s busy times in Kate-land. This weekend I went home to Oregon for my 10-year high school reunion (!!) and to throw a wedding shower for my oldest friend, Kathrin. My mom was incredibly generous about hosting at their house and preparing all the food, and she spent a [...]

Well. I inadvertently made a meal from all Trader Joe’s ingredients: That’s a Harvest Grain mix (israeli couscous, some orzo, baby garbanzo beans, quinoa), mahi mahi marinated in garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes, and a bag of baby spinach. Doesn’t that look promising? Just wait, in the finished photo it looks even better. [...]

I spent this weekend back up in Hanover helping my brother Tom get ready to leave for a two-month trip through Europe to absorb great works of architecture. He’s a smart puppy who won a travel grant to fund this trip. Since graduating from Dartmouth last June he designed and built a new timber-framed sugarhouse [...]

PenFifteen, my photo blog with Bridge, is back up and running as of this weekend (after a nine-month break).

We went to Florida this weekend to visit some dear friends and their 15-month old baby, and it was a shock to the system to get back to Boston, a mere 8 hours after leaving the white-sand beach on an 80-degree day, and walk out of the airport to frigid 18-degree winds. Yikes. Sigh. Maybe [...]

On Boxing Day we all headed over to Eastern Oregon to stay at Sunriver, near Bend, and ski at Mt. Bachelor. We needed two cars, since Ben and I would drive straight back to Portland and Mom, Dad and Tom would return to Eugene. The changing views on the drive over: We crawled over the [...]

The holidays may be the only time of year when my family’s food obsession seems normal–after all, who *isn’t* constantly cooking around Christmas? Ben and I headed out to Oregon on the Sunday before Christmas and stayed a week. Christmas Eve we always cook at the home of wonderful family friends, the Davidsons. The menu [...]

Happy 2008! I have tons of photos from the trip home to upload, and lots to write about. In the meantime, here I am with my Dad, midway up Mt. Bachelor on my lone ski day last week. Shortly after this was taken I cracked my tail bone on a tile floor in the lodge [...]

(Our lovely tree, a Fraser Fir we cut down at a farm near Boston.) Merry Christmas!! We are celebrating with my family in Oregon–I’m sure there will be food stories to come… Have a safe and happy holiday.

After finishing my meandering shopping trip, I went to the Rue Mercier, a touristy pedestrian street lined with inexpensive restaurants. I had fun reading the prix fixe options on every menu, then picked the smallest and most crowded one for my solo dinner. I sat at a tiny table next to the door, facing out [...]