February, 2026

• At 17, I worked as a driver for an Encyclopedia Britannica salesman who lost his license after too many DUIs. I went inside with him and sat through all the sales pitches. That was more uncomfortable than being in the car alone with this guy.
• I just found a gray hair… in my nose! I shouldn’t have looked up there. 👀
• In 1991, I sang the national anthem at a Chicago White Sox game in Comiskey Park. As a Canadian, I didn’t know all the words and had to study them first. I don’t know if they applauded for me or just for the anthem. 🇺🇸
• As a standup comic playing clubs on the road in the 1980s, I worked with lots of other comics playing the circuit, all of us hoping to make it big, including Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen, Billy Crystal, Bob Saget, Larry Miller, and Brad Garrett. We all played clubs across the country, never knowing who would be on the bill until we got there. 🎤
• Every night right before bed, I eat a muffin, a glass of milk, and a small piece of dark chocolate. Then right to bed. I think that’s against the rules…🤔
• I was a contestant on The Match Game.
• When I was 11 years old, I ran away from home with an older girl – she was 13. We passed for 16 and we both worked as waitresses. They didn’t find us for a month and we only got caught because we shoplifted an iron for our uniforms.
• I’m not afraid of snakes. Only spiders.
• I’m not an adventurous eater. I’ve never had sushi, escargot, or blood sausage (did they HAVE to call it that?) or oysters. People eat them raw? Seriously? I won’t eat anything that might still be moving. 🤢

My freezer’s getting full. I love to bake so all my breads and cookies are filling up the shelves. This way they are always fresh and we’re not tempted to eat too many sweets. When I say “we” I refer to myself, who is a person of discipline and standards… not the guy who also lives here! 😀❤️ Here’s what I cooked this week:

• Chicken pot pie + salad
• Deviled eggs
• Oatmeal muffins
• Salmon patties with rice and steamed Brussels sprouts
• Chicken noodle soup
• Granola bars
• Vegetable stir fry with cashews
• Turkey chili + salad
• No knead crusty rolls (for the chili)
• Buckwheat pancakes
• Vegetable soup
• Tortillas
• Broiled branzino with steamed potatoes and broccolini
• Chocolate pudding
• Taco salad
• Dark chocolate oatmeal cookies (just added as a new recipe!) Guess who already ate two!

NEW RECIPE: This was an experiment that I didn’t think would turn out but… wow! They are so good! I make lots of oatmeal cookies and wondered why they can’t be chocolate cookies too, so I used my crispy oatmeal cookies recipe and made a couple of small adjustments and here it is. It’s a crispy… (I love all things crispy (except pudding 🙂) …a crispy oatmeal cookie that’s all chocolate too.

I score these cookies while they’re still warm so they can easily be split into two. Always trying to reduce sweets, 1/2 a cookie is plenty of dessert for me. My husband loves chocolate and as soon as he saw these scored cookies, he said, “Oh boy! Ice cream sandwiches!” I suggested he take 1/2 a cookie and break that into half again for his ice cream sandwich. He’s still laughing. 😍

I do the best I can around here but it’s an uphill battle. ❤️ Click here for the recipe.

So here’s what happened. In my endless and wasted hours of research on making sourdough starter (yes, I’m still mad! 😖) I saw one comment saying that the starter might not work as well with organic whole wheat flour. So I bought a bag of regular whole wheat flour and it started going well for a few days and then failed, just like all my other sourdough fiascos. (…still mad…) But that comment made me wonder… would plain whole wheat flour work better in my no knead bread? I think it did.

My whole wheat Dutch oven bread was always delicious but never as tall and airy as the plain white bread flour version. I already had the non-organic whole wheat flour so I decided to try it. Look at the result! ⤴ It was almost double the height of my usual loaves. And look at that crackly, crispy, crust! Maybe it’s a flook, I thought… a mere coincidence. I finished the loaf and made another one with the non-organic flour. Same thing. Beautifully big and lofty. And shouldn’t your bread reflect your goals in life? Big and lofty? 👍

It’s my belief that non-organic whole wheat flour makes a better loaf of no knead bread and that’s why I’m sharing it here. I use a lot of organic products when possible, but if the lettuce is wilted and sad and looks like it’s trying to talk, saying “I know. I wouldn’t buy me either,” then I buy non-organic. It’s the same with this bread. I wouldn’t buy my old whole wheat bread at the bakery, so I am switching to non-organic flour. If my old loaf could talk, it would say, “I’ll miss you, Jenny, but I’m not here to judge. I know in my heart that relationships don’t always last. I wish you and that non-organic whole wheat whore the best.” 😲

I was born in 1946. My parents were Polish refugees. They came to Canada with their own history and experiences, trying to make a new life and raise their two daughters. They were doing the best they knew how… ❤️

THEN: As children, to keep us from getting sick, my sister and I were given sugar cubes soaked in naphtha. I still remember the awful aftertaste. Naphthalene, which is highly flammable, is processed from crude oil and is used to make gasoline, solvents, and paint.

NOW: We just eat right.

THEN: One of our lunches as kids was a sugar sandwich. It was on Wonder bread of course, and here’s the recipe: Slather the bread with butter and top it with lots of sugar. What kid wouldn’t love that?

NOW: A salmon sandwich on whole wheat bread.

THEN: If we got sick, we ate a big raw clove of garlic followed by a piece of bread. I don’t know what the bread was for. Just so you know, raw garlic is hot, spicy, and burns when you eat it, nothing like when it’s cooked.

NOW: We cook with garlic for its antibiotic properties.

THEN: When we cut ourselves, the treatment was usually more painful than the cut. Mercurochrome! Yes, there’s nothing like a burning dose of mercury on an open wound! It was either mercurochrome or iodine, which was equally painful. After applying it, my mother would blow on it to cool down the burn! 🔥

NOW: Luckily, we have antibiotic creams with pain medicine added.

THEN: Zimne Nogi. ⬆ That’s Polish for “cold legs” and it was my dad’s specialty. He cooked a big pot of pigs feet and other ingredients for hours on the stove and wound up with a gelatinous glob that I could barely look at, and definitely not eat. He called it Galaretka. He loved it but I saw it as pigs in aspic and just couldn’t even try it.

NOW: Still no.

THEN: When my boobs didn’t grow by 14, my parents were not happy. They had ideas. My dad said to try ice water on my chest and to drink wine to stimulate my appetite to eat more, hoping if I gained weight, it would all go to my chest. My mother bought me falsies and ordered a Mark Eden bust developer from the back of  a magazine. ⬇

NOW: “You are beautiful the way God made you.” 😍

While the Super Bowl was on, I made spaghetti. Here’s what I cooked this week:

• Spaghetti & meatballs with salad and breadsticks
• Chicken noodle soup
• Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
• Vegetable stir fry with cashews (recipe coming)
• Tortillas
• Vegetable soup with cannellini beans

• 70% Dark chocolate cashew clusters
• Spinach fried rice with Asian salad
• Whole wheat bread
• Rigatoni with meat sauce + salad
• Granola bars
• Butterscotch pudding

I tried AGAIN to make sourdough starter this week. It was the fourth and LAST time. I failed every time and I am done! Please don’t tell me how easy it is because it’s not! If it actually was easy, then I’d be having sourdough bread tonight with my spaghetti. The one thing that goes well with carbs… is more carbs! 😋 I may have over estimated my abilities in the kitchen. 👨‍🍳

I don’t take for granted how fortunate I’ve been that I can splurge on pricey cosmetics but they’re not all expensive. Here, I’m sharing a list of my favorite products priced low to high. These are all in my medicine cabinet right now…

Under $25:

• Fresh Sugar Advanced Lip Therapy
• Fresh Face Vitamin Nectar Face Mist
• LaRoche-Posay Toleraine Double Repair Face Moisturizer
• Caudalie Hand and Nail Cream
• Gold Bond Age Renew Retinol Overnight Body & Face Lotion (I use for the body)

Under $50:

• Dr. Hauschka Rose Day Cream Light
• SkinCeuticals Micro-Exfoliating Scrub
• EltaMD UV Sheer SPF 50+ Sunscreen
• Avene Tolerance Extremely Gentle Cleanser

Under $100:

• Dr. Dennis Gross Advanced Retinol + Ferulic Overnight Wrinkle Treatment Serum
• Dr. Dennis Gross Advanced Retinol + Ferulic Intense Wrinkle Cream
• Natura Bisse C+C Vitamin Splash Face Mist

Over $100:

• SkinCeuticals Triple Lipid Restore Moisturizer
• SkinMedica TNS Recovery Complex
• Natura Bisse Diamond Extreme (it’s best to be seated when checking this price! 😳)

p.s. I took that flower photo last year. 🌺

I am not an adventurous eater and have a problem with squishy food. That includes mushrooms. I love the flavor but not the squish factor so I always chop them up small.  Here’s what I cooked this week:

• Chicken & mushrooms with steamed carrots + cucumber slices
• No knead whole wheat bread
• Chicken stock
• Dark chocolate fudge/walnut brownies
• Vegetable fried rice with Asian salad
• Tortillas
• Custard pudding

• Chicken & spinach skillet pasta with steamed yellow beets
• Lemon blueberry loaf cake
• Sweet & sour cabbage soup
• Taco casserole the lots of tomatoes and shredded iceberg lettuce
• Dark chocolate dipped coconut macaroons

We love beets! Whenever I make borscht, my husband always says, “You can’t beet soup!” 😀