Retro Sundays

This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

How to Use Food and Wine Jargon Without Sounding Pretentious (December 2009)
I learned two important things after writing this post: First, the people who really should read it most likely won't. Second, never create "composite characters" made up of people from your old career. I had three separate colleagues from my former Wall Street days ask me if this post was about them.

Eight Tips to Make Cooking At Home Laughably Cheap (December 2006)
This post was inspired by a know-it-all friend from Manhattan who claimed it was cheaper to eat out than to cook at home. Fool. I later created the meme Laughably Cheap and a ton of laughably cheap recipes to go with it, and well, the rest is history.

Wintry Tomato Vegetable Soup (December 2007)
This easy and inexpensive soup recipe has been a long-time favorite here at CK, and it's an absolutely perfect meal for a freezing winter day.

Capitalize on Your Cooking Core Competencies (December 2007)
Turn your household into a well-oiled cooking machine with the tips in this post--the final installment in my series on How to Team Up in the Kitchen.

Blog Improvement 101 Links (December 2008)
What are your plans to make your blog even better in the coming year? I put together this list of the ten best articles on blogging from 2008, and I'm still referring to each of them in my efforts to improve Casual Kitchen. These articles are as useful today as ever.

A Short Guide to Common Nicaraguan Foods (December 2009)
Laura and I spent a week in Nicaragua two years ago (we were there with a team of eye doctors giving free eye exams), and we simply fell in love with this country and its unpretentious foods. This post gets a surprising amount of search traffic--and a ton of comment spam from people selling Central American real estate. Go figure.

Eight Things Frugality Taught Me (December 2010)
Most people live in a state of constant fear of being different, and one result of that fear is our culture's voracious consumerism. What has frugality taught you?


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