When I moved into this house in March, I discovered that although the previous owners had moved out, their tenants had not. Mice cannot be toilet trained, and I quickly grew tired of cleaning up their poop.

So I bought a mouse trap, filled it with peanut butter and set it beside the mouse hole in the kitchen. Yes, I have an actual mouse hole in my kitchen. Not a cute dome-shaped thing like you see in the Tom and Jerry cartoons. No, this hole is about eight inches long and one inch high, and is hidden inside the pantry. More of a mouse slit than a hole, really. Continue reading →

Remember the first time you tried to bake with the “help” of a small child? I do. I had one kid back then. A very high-energy toddler. A toddler so energetic that even a modest dose of sugar—or those freaky chemicals found in so many packaged foods—nudged her into a level of frenzy usually only seen amongst startled squirrels.

For reasons that no longer make sense to me, I decided that for our first family cooking event, we’d make rice krispies squares. Continue reading →