For the love of cuts and burns

07/14/2026

My husband likes to joke that he is going to have a bay leaf engraved on my tombstone and I am all for this idea. If you have ever eaten my food, you have likely picked a bay or two or three out of your soup or sauce or curry; not even my desserts are immune. Thus I present to you: blueberry bay compote. The herbaly cinnamony quality of the bay pairs beautifully with blueberry but who am I kidding, I'm mostly just making this to make extra bay syrup and spike every drink in sight.

https://edibleminnesota.com/2026/07/13/blueberry-bay-compote/

07/13/2026

If you didn't know, small dinner party catering is just one of my 497 jobs! I love finding creativity in menu planning and finding my adrenal glands in executing said menu.

Tonight's menu:

Croistini with Steve Sando and the Rancho Gordo staff caballero bean butter, grilled peach and fennel

Smoked corn salad with butter lettuce, herbs, lime and maple

Seared sirloin; roasted tomato and pepper sauce with rose harissa and preserved lemon; garlic confit roasted potatoes

Lemon posset, whipped cream, blueberry, strawberry dust

05/17/2026

There are quite a few staples that I stock up on when I find myself in an Asian grocery store and huge quantities of black sesame seeds are one of them. These little guys are delicious but they are also nutrient powerhouses - I ate them a lot during pregnancy because they are incredibly rich in iron and I keep eating them for their calcium, magnesium, zinc, antioxidants, and earthy bitterness. Paired with dates, cardamom, and rose water, this is a drink fit for the goddesses. Swipe for the ingredients, blend it all up (and push it through a fine mesh strainer if you want it silky smooth) and let me know if you can't read my chicken scratch.

05/12/2026

Somewhere along the way, I lost the thread, the drive, the urge for posting anything, ever to social media. Probably not the best practice for a small business, but what are ya gonna do. Post more? Probably. Talk about a recipe that I made for Edible Minnesota so many months ago? Definitely. One thing's for certain - I haven't stopped cooking, teaching, writing, or caring about food and the world of.
Now let's talk brassicas. Paired with lemon tahini sauce, pickled sultanas and fresh herbs, this dish is sure to delight as long as you get a good sear of your vegetables. Remember, high heat (like 475), lots of space for each floret to breathe, a lack of parchment or foil on the pan, and cooking on the bottom rack will crisp your brassicas like a pro.
Head to edibleminnesota.com for the recipe or wait like two days for me to figure out how a link in bio works again. 🙃

10/21/2025

Much of my summer was consumed by the endlessly-confusing-to-outsiders and ever-intriguing-to-insiders art of the meat raffle. This was one of the more difficult articles I've had to write, not because of the lack of content (believe me, there is no lack in the state of Minnesota) but because I became so fascinated by the folks that attend and even more by the hosts that spin that the story became less about food and more about people. Writing for a food magazine, I saw this as a problem. The meat raffle represents so much more than an exercise in light gambling and day drinking and potential meat winning (though those are definite perks); I could spend a lifetime chatting up the regulars and the spinners and perhaps I will as long as I've got time to spare and dollars to contribute. Big thanks to Dustys Bar, the Knight Cap, and Jakes on the Lake for letting me warm your bar stools. Find the article at edibleminnesota.com or at the link in bio as soon as I remember how to do that.

01/07/2025

For the first time in four years, a new recipe! (Although if you read the fine print, you will in fact discover that it is quite an old recipe that I just forgot to publish back when I had time to write recipes.)

Combine tahini with garlic, honey and lemon for a delicious recipe perfect for salad greens, roasted vegetables, grains or meat.

01/01/2025

Our family doesn't yet have any established traditions for January 1st but making black eyed peas has long been one of mine. Plus, I'm pretty sure would boot you from the bean club if you didn't, and I dare not take that risk. Pictured is an off script version of the famous BEP with berbere and coconut milk from , except I used a quart container of pico de gallo left over from a cooking class last week to start the curry, with a combination of fiery berbere and a seven spice blend (allspice, cinnamon, ginger, clove, cardamom, galangal, and rose) to highlight the warm tones of the dish. Pair it with and screaming children and you've got yourself one hell of a way to start the year.

10/17/2024

My latest article in the fall issue of Edible Minnesota is, undeniably, my most personal. I got my mom and her three sisters together to reminisce about our family booya, scraping together memories that started in the 1970's when my grandfather began hosting the annual event. If you have no idea what I'm talking about (booya?!), this article is for you. If you're in the need of gathering community and a fall party idea, this article is for you. If you love soup, this article is for you.

For me, this article is dedicated to my Grandma Rybak, the matriarch of the family and the one who this wouldn't have happened so seamlessly without. She passed the day I got the green light for this story. This is for her.

"When I lived in Seattle, my Minnesotan heritage was my party trick. My friends squealed at every utterance of bag, pontoon, and a well-placed dontchyaknow; as a bartender, I leaned into the accent anytime I had to kick someone out, hoping it would soften the blow. I learned quickly that Midwestern culture is somewhat exotic to the coast and that what I once regarded as normal as Sunday football was now an anomaly for amusement.

There was no better place to illustrate this distinction than the dinner table. My potluck contributions were a delightful melange of delicacies: sherbet Jell-Os, cornflake-laden hot dishes, dairy product potpourris. The fare that best perplexed my friends, however, wasn't because of the dish itself, but rather because of the lore behind it - the Rybak family Booya."

Read on at edibleminnesota.com

09/02/2024

Only one more month to grab the summer edition of Edible Minnesota! I was honored to interview Diane Moua, to tell her story, and to have the perfect excuse to dive into the history of a cuisine and culture that makes the Twin Cities so special. Thanks to her, Hmong sausage is my new obsession. Find a copy or read online at edibleminnesota.com and if you're in the cities, grab some food at Diane's Place asap and don't dare pass up the hot sauce.

.communities

07/31/2024

Since my website is down I may as well let you all know I'm alive in other ways. Instagram ways! (Even though I haven't posted a recipe on the site in, like, two years, but who's counting.)

Hey everyone, I'm alive! I still cook! Every day in fact! Three meals and snacks! Mostly things that go with ranch dressing and ketchup! (But who's counting?)

I also do small party catering, public cooking classes at , private cooking classes, postpartum personal chef work, writing for and newsletter editing for . All that while managing to keep a 1 & 3 year old alive with ketchup and ranch dressing (how I long for the days of the adventurous eater). My children are my full time, my five jobs are my side hustles. 😅🤦‍♀️ One American Dream, coming right up.

Anyway, I miss giving a s**t about posting things to my website and to socials, even though I hated doing it at the time. That's what the threat of losing it does, I suppose.

I'm happy you're here. I'm just saying hey. 👋

Pictured: beet ketchup, bean dip with roasted tomato, muhummurah, watermelon salad, Moroccan spiced veg on ricotta with cilantro oil, greens and herbs salad with orange blossom dressing, rose harissa pasta