Five Ingredient English Toffee Cookies Recipe

Growing up, my mother’s English toffee was one of my favorite candies.  She only made it around Christmas, but now I’m grown up and see how easy it is to make, which means I make it more often. The ironically-named English toffee (being a toffee some say is not toffee) is incredibly simple and easy to make.  […]

Four Ingredient Chocolate Fudge Recipe

Chocolate fudge is often seen as an expensive delicacy, rarely consumed and even more rarely made at home. This rich confection can be made at home far easier than most people realize, making it one of my favorite kinds of foods to make: something people associate with high cost that is not that way, at […]

Two Essential Chinese Sauces

Cooking Chinese food, I find myself using two sauces above all others: a Szechuan sauce and a Sweet and Sour sauce. Living in Taiwan, it’s hard for me to find the kind of Chinese food I like: the kind of Chinese we eat in the USA.  American Chinese food is very Cantonese, with thicker sauces, […]

A Simple Explanation of Inflation, Minimum Wage, and Value Meals

Many people don’t really understand inflation, so I thought a simple explanation of inflation might help.  One of the more interesting ways is to look at the history of inflation as it relates to the minimum wage, because while only 2% of Americans make minimum wage, almost all of us have been minimum wage employees […]

An Easy Way To Understand The USA’s Budget

Let me give you an easy way to understand the USA’s budget by comparing their numbers to something more familiar to you. Here’s the numbers regarding the 2012 US income/budget/debt:But that’s not easy to understand and appreciate. Because it just looks like such an enormous amount of money. So how about we remove some zeros and […]

Who Are You Voting For, or, A Realistic and Simple Breakdown Between Obama and Romney

So, I get into a lot of historical and political discussions with people.  I find most of them excruciatingly frustrating.  Most people have no idea what they are talking about and, really, I need to find the will-power to just stop talking to them about this stuff.  People don’t argue to share information: they argue […]

Missing Macaroni

One of the things I miss from back in The States is Kraft Blue Box Macaroni & Cheese.  Yes, I know it’s processed crap.  I don’t care.  And I’m willing to bet a lot of people reading this right now feel the same.  After being served it since children, we develop the taste for it, […]

Pesto, As Promised

You have one big problem making a legitimate pesto sauce here in Taiwan: pine nuts.  Everything else is so easy it makes my marinara sauce recipe look difficult. To make a pesto sauce, you need nothing more than basil, olive oil, Parmesan, and garlic…and that elusive pine nut. I’ve only seen pine nuts at Costco and, […]

Eating Italian In Taiwan

Taiwan has a lot of great food. But both Italian and Mexican food are not on the list of things they do well. Traditionally, the Chinese like noodles served in a much more broth-like sauce – even their Italian versions of cuisine are noticeably loose. Think when you go to a bad Italian joint in […]

Homemade Brownies: A Healthier Alternative To Box Mix

I got to thinking about homemade protein brownies as they compared to cost, labor, and nutrition, compared to cooking out of a Pillsbury box. Finding recipes online can be a real frustration. I recently went looking for a homemade brownie recipe, as an alternative to typical store-bought “Box Brownies” that are both not necessarily available […]