Growing up, grilled cheese sandwiches meant orange-rimmed, melted slices of Muenster cheese hugged tightly between two slices of buttered white bread. This comfort food classic is a childhood favorite and cemented Muenster as my cheese of choice.
Unfortunately, I ha
ve yet to find Muenster cheese at a local farmer’s market or though the Philadelphia Winter Harvest buying club. What I have found is celeriac, or celery root, a funky root vegetable with little physical resemblance to the familiar and graceful celery stalk. But beauty is only skin-deep, and like the creepy kohlrabi that I experimented with last winter, it’s uses are plentiful and its flavor mild, warm, comforting – perfect for cold, snowy weather, no stranger to the Philadelphia region this month.
J and I took a much needed vacation to Tennessee for our birthdays; we freakishly share the same birthday – same day, same year. No joke. The gift of annual birthday travel is a promise to we made to each other after our engagement in Portland, Oregon, for the same purpose over two years ago.
The vacation was anything but restful. We toured the streets of both Nashville and Memphis, reveling in historical music scenes while enjoying 
trast 
Dancing meets The Shining ambiance, perfect for a weekend getaway with 130 of our closest friends and family. We also made it a point (okay, maybe my insatiable sweet tooth made it a point) to go back to the bakery that created our delicious red velvet and chocolate-chip layered wedding cake; we left the morning after our wedding without the customary top to freeze. Our valiant effort to salvage good luck bestowed 6 vanilla cupcakes. Sweet nostalgia.
kabocha squash, also known as the Japanese pumpkin, to create this simple and healthy muffin. When I uncovered the squash from my 
While this may be a common directive for many families at the dinner table, it doesn’t always apply to kitchen creatives determined to make baked goods both healthy and satisfying. Myself, included.
