Candice: Introduction

Greetings, internets. I am a mother of two, suburban housewife, sometime graphic designer, occasional artist, and easily-amused cynic. I also fully support the Oxford comma. Cooking is something I do under duress. That task usually falls to my husband, though I find myself in the kitchen more and more in an attempt to streamline our evenings and make up for the residual guilt I feel for handing him the morning and evening routines with the children.

My son is four and loves helping in the kitchen, so much so that he asks for cookbooks at bedtime. He has a severe peanut allergy so we keep a peanut-free home. I am even harder to feed, though: sensitive to soy, loath seafood and cheese, fraught with texture issues. When I had children and we instituted the "no thank you bite" I joined in, but I still don't like peas. At 20 months, my daughter's tastes are still forming. She inhaled gorgonzola-stuffed dates recently, and I was delighted until I had to clean her up. My husband, thank goodness, is a human trash compactor with an iron stomach.

We are haphazard meal planners who try to buy everything organic, as it takes away the pressure I feel to be an informed consumer. We believe in real butter and full fat dairy, buy sprouted-grain bread in an attempt to offset my son's toast habit, and hide vegetables in all the lame ways you already know about. I try not to offer the same things every week. But sometimes you just have to give in to Nacho Night and let the children eat sour cream by the spoonful. The Cook's Illustrated iPhone app is the only cookbook I use anymore, although they do pretend slow cookers don't exist—sacrilege!