Pennington's Foodstory

    What a cool idea for a dinner party.  My friend Robin told me the other day of a style of dinner party that she has been having recently.   It's called "Scratch Night" and it's a group participation party.  She comes up with a fun menu and then teaches everyone how to make the dishes.  It works like this, she puts together an ingredient list that is emailed to all the guests.  Everyone picks the items that they want to bring, copies the other guests, and shows up with all the stuff.  Robin then assigns tasks and shows everyone how to complete them.  Food is prepared, everyone chows down with a sense of accomplishment.  How cool!      "Pizza Night" sounded great.  She premade a bunch of dough earlier in the day for the dinner pizzas and then for the lesson, everyone got to make dough for the dessert pizzas.  Since pizza dough takes roughly 2 hours to proof, timing for dessert was perfect....

    It's soon approaching... The daily question that happens to families all over the world.  What's for dinner?  It happens most everyday, yet I dread it none the less.  The reason that I dread it is that I'm trying to ward off a food rut.  You know, it's when you feel like you're eating the same foods over and over.  It's an easy pattern to fall into.  We tend to eat/cook what's most familiar and easy to pull off without too much hassle.  For me, it also means a run to the store, which is something else I dread.  After a long day at work, most folks don't feel like getting elbow deep in preparations, and if the hour is late, most default towards something too quick and more than likely unhealthy to eat.  But less about the timing thing for now, I want to get to the heart of the matter which is the flavor rut.     Food/Flavor ruts are the only thing that burn my ass more than a flame about 3 feet high.  K...