What's For Dinner?

Good vs. Bad

Good: It’s 6:20 and still light out.

Bad: I’ve had a headache since I woke up that just won’t go away.

Good: There’s no more snow in our back yard.

Bad: There’s a lot of “leftovers” from the dog from the whole winter.

Good: Adam’s picking up dinner.

Bad: I’m not cooking anything, so this is as exciting as this post is going to get.

Good: I may have lied… there’s exciting stuff happening this week.

Bad: It’s not happening ’til Thursday.

Good: Adam and I are meal planning the rest of the week.

Bad: I want to make something healthy for St. Patrick’s day and don’t know what! Suggestions?

I’m off to eat and try to shake this headache… big congrats to everyone who raced today!

Technorati Tags: sick

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Mara @ What's For Dinner?, March 14th 2010 | Tags: sick
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SkinMD Natural Giveaway Winner!

The winner of the Skin MD Natural lotion giveaway is comment #27, which is Coco!! I’ll send you an email to get your mailing address! Congrats friend!!

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Mara @ What's For Dinner?, February 26th 2010 | Tags: giveaway
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I got a whopping 3 anonymous questions today, so since dinner is far off, I’ll take tonight’s post to answer them! Just remember you can ask me anything on my “Ask Me” page… but if you’re going to ask me what it was like to be a fat bride, (yes someone asked) don’t bother. Anonymity brings the worst out in some people, as illustrated by this favorite (albeit a bit vulgar) cartoon of mine:

So true, huh?

On to the questions:

How come you don’t do more giveaways, you could do healthy foods and cooking products.

To be completely honest, the reason I don’t do more healthy food giveaways and cooking products is because companies don’t send me the stuff. While I don’t mind occasionally giving away small things that I’m responsible for shipping, most giveaways I do involve the manufacturer or distributor sending you the prize. I’m merely a middle school Spanish teacher, and my blogging revenue does little more than assist in some of our grocery purchases. I’d love to be able to buy massive amounts of products simply to give away, it’s just not financially feasible right now. Also, I really suck at getting things out in the mail. Luckily Laura (who won my anniversary giveaway in NOVEMBER) is a friend of mine, and very patient.

As a bride, did you feel pressure to look a certain way? Did it affect your cooking/food choices at all?

ABSOLUTELY! I haven’t been what you would call “small” for a long time, but I did have this nagging little voice in the back of my head saying “you should get thin for the wedding, lose weight!” And then I went dress shopping. I found that there were dresses that looked amazing on my body at the size it was, which snapped me back to reality. That nagging feeling definitely stuck around for a while, but Adam and I joke that we were the only people to quit our diets BEFORE the wedding. Financially, as I mentioned yesterday, the $80 a month for the two of us to stay WW members wasn’t realistic anymore. We ate well on our own for a while, and then the stress of the wedding planning kicked in and it went to crap. I had less time and desire to cook, and more desire to eat what was easy, and I gained a little bit of weight. Do I wish I’d been in better shape for our wedding? Sure. But, did my size make the day any less fabulous and perfect? Absolutely not!

You might have hit on this before, but I would love to know why you chose teaching? Was it something you always wanted to do or did you realize the desire to teach as you got older?

I’m one of the few people who have always known what they wanted to do when they “grew up.” I was lucky enough to have wonderful teachers almost every year that I was in school. I remember being asked in first grade what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said “a teacher.” I went through a brief phase in high school when I wanted to be a high school band director, but that passed quickly. The main reason I teach middle school though, is because of the amazing teachers I had in middle school. See, I wasn’t always as cool with the fact that I’m a geek as I am now. I’ve always been interested in technology, crafting, computers, and other things that weren’t “cool” in 1990-1994. There was a group of girls who decided that I was going to be their target for all things bitchy during that time. (A few of them have actually apologized in recent years, which is wonderful) My teachers saw what was happening, and took me, this skinny, short, geeky girl under their wing, and kept me busy after school so I could walk home after the girls had all left. I’m a Spanish teacher thanks to the love and support of my middle school Spanish teacher, with whom I just got reconnected. SO, in answer to your question, I’ve always known.

And, for part of Flashback Friday, I present you with my lovely 8th grade graduation portrait. Pre-boobs, pre-braces, pre-hair dye, complete with half-assed mall bangs, a floral bodysuit, and velvet choker. I am willing to bet there were zipper bottomed stone washed jeans French rolled with slouchy socks and velvet flats with this outfit too…

So with that, I leave you… come back tomorrow for a Super Bowl-themed Cute Food Saturday!

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Mara @ What's For Dinner?, February 5th 2010 | Tags: ask me, interview
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Honeymoon, Take 1 or Why US Airways Spent Our Honeymoon Money

Some of you may be confused as to exactly why I’m posting when I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon, while some of you have been eagerly awaiting details since Saturday morning. This is a VERY LONG POST. Don’t expect a lot of food/recipes/cooking type information in this post, nor should you expect your normal “bubbly happy in-a-good-mood” Mara. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my entire life, including when I lost my last teaching job due to budget cuts.

Let me rewind. Our flight for our honeymoon to Jamaica via Philadelphia was scheduled to leave O’Hare airport at 7:25 a.m. CDT on Saturday, December 19. On Friday night, upon checking the weather and seeing this:

Adam and I decided to check the status of our flight. It was still “on time” but with a “travel advisory” in Philly, which meant that we could a) move our entire itinerary up to 7 days, b) reroute through a city that didn’t have a travel advisory, or c) be refunded for our tickets. Since A and C weren’t options, we got on the phone with US Airways and were going to request a reroute. After sitting on hold for over 2 hours, we decided to “risk it” and still leave the following morning.

Saturday morning, we got in our taxi on the way to O’Hare expecting the documented 25 minute delay in our flight to Philadelphia, and we were prepared to possibly miss out on one day in Jamaica due to the snowstorm on the east coast. On a whim, Adam requested at the ticket desk to be rerouted through Charlotte where there wasn’t snow yet, and he was REFUSED. We boarded on time, then had to sit for an extra half hour while the plane was de-iced. The flight was choppy, full of crying babies, and had so much turbulence I thought I’d be sick. The pilot announced we were about 75 miles outside of Philadelphia and would be landing shortly. Then 2 minutes later he announced we’d be in a holding pattern for at least 20 minutes because Philly only had one runway plowed. Then 20 minutes later, he said it would be another 30 minutes.

We finally touched down and walked as fast as we could to get to the gate for our connecting flight (on which at least 20 people on our flight were trying to catch) only to find out it had left not 5 minutes before we got there. Why they couldn’t hold the plane for 20 people, I’ll never know. Once we found out we’d missed the plane, we were greeted with the first of many lines we’d stand in over the course of the next two days. We took a risk and went to a ticketing desk to attempt to get onto the next flight to Jamaica (at 6:15 p.m.) We managed to get on standby, and watched as the terrible snow storm got worse, yet our flight was still listed as on-time. No one at any other desks would help us get ACTUAL tickets because “they can’t control the weather” and we’d “just have to wait.”

We did get the first of many meals out, authentic Philly Cheesesteaks and Yuengling

Then the waiting started. We waited in the terminal for any information about the flight… we had a gut feeling we wouldn’t actually get to take off, but they continued to say it was an on-time flight. We were scheduled to board at 5:30 p.m. and found out at 5:15 that we had gotten seats on the flight! There were 6 available and we were the first 2 on the standby list. And at 5:20, it was announced that the airport was closing and all flights were cancelled. Oh, and by the way, since they “can’t control the weather” there would be no concessions made for hotel rooms. We made a reservation at the cheapest hotel we could find ($87) and were instructed to go to baggage claim to wait for our luggage to come off the plane.

And wait we did. We watched luggage from canceled flight after canceled flight come into the carousels, and heard announcement after announcement that “bags would not be pulled” and to “be patient and wait for your flight’s luggage”. FIVE HOURS LATER an announcement came on that said “If you were scheduled to be on an international flight, and Philly was not your final destination, you will not be receiving your bags tonight.” We were told that they didn’t have the authorization to get the bags off the plane yet. So now, Adam and I were left with our “emergency” pajamas and underwear in my carry on to last us the night, and we got in line to get a taxi to our overpriced hotel. While we waited, I called US Airways to try to get on a flight to Jamaica by Monday.

See, not all the customer service people we dealt with were apathetic and rude. The people at the Sandals resort we were going to were wonderful. We filled them in on what was happening, and they happily moved our stay from its original date up days without a complaint, fee, or problem.

Back to the story. I was on hold with US Airways to try to get to Jamaica for three hours. I dialed their number as we got in line for a taxi. Someone finally came on the phone after we were already in the taxi… which means yes, we waited for a taxi for three hours. Something we noticed while we were waiting was that the airport did nothing for those people that were stranded. There were no cots, no bottled water, and the soda machines promptly sold out of water. O’Hare always sets up cots and hands out water and snacks if/when the airport closes and people are stranded.

Once we drove through the horrendously plowed Philadelphia streets to get to our hotel one mile from the airport, the cabbie pulled into the side street that led to the hotel. It was one of those complexes with about 5 hotels, and ours was the farthest from the street. Which meant, of course, that the taxi got stuck and we had to walk 2 blocks in a blizzard up to the hotel. Cue up clumsy Mara. I fell. In the snow. Hard. I have a lovely bruise which I won’t show you…

This whole time, Adam was on the phone with the “customer service” representative at US Airways trying to get out to Jamaica. Upon telling her that we had missed our connecting flight to Jamaica in the first place, and we’d been refused a reroute she said “Why is that my problem?” and Adam promptly requested a supervisor. Finally we came to a conclusion:

Since the earliest flight out to Jamaica is Thursday, December 24, we’d fly home for a couple days.
The earliest flight to Chicago was Monday, December 21.
We’d move our Sandals stay from Thursday to Thursday
We’d move our return flight to Thursday, Dec. 31

So we were stuck in Philadelphia until Monday, but at least (so we thought) had a resolution. It then hit us that we were hungry, so we went out in search of dinner. Unfortunately, there was no restaurant or grocery store within walking distance, so our dinner on the first night of our honeymoon was:

I had Combos and Twix

Adam had pretzels and M&Ms, and that’s a shared bottle of water.

And we crashed.

**Are you still with me? We’re only halfway there. Stretch, get some water, and sit back down. The story gets better!**

When we woke up Sunday morning, we checked out of our one hotel and walked over to the Embassy Suites about a block away. We were greeted by pleasant faces, free coffee, and an early check-in. We promptly ordered pizza, Adam took a nap, and I watched some TV and attempted to make the best of the situation. I got on the phone with US AIrways again to try and track down our luggage and get confirmation that we wouldn’t be charged any more money for our changed flights. I was reassured that we wouldn’t, and I got the number for the Philly airport’s baggage claim office.

I was told by the baggage claim guy I talked to that, in order to get our bags, we’d need to file a claim and indicate where we wanted them to go. We had a few choices: we could have them put on our flight to Chicago (but they might not make it), we could have them shipped to us at home (but we might miss them with our flight out Thursday) or we could have them put on our flight to Jamaica and we could get them when we get there. Either way, we’d have to come in and sign a claim. So we went. And we waited for three hours only to be told by a different guy that our bags were already on their way to Jamaica and we’d just claim them when we got there.

We returned to the hotel, went swimming (see, I packed our swimsuits in my carry on in case our luggage got lost on its way to Jamaica), and ordered room service for dinner. It was some lovely food: chicken nachos to share, I got a Cobb salad, and Adam got a delicious “California sandwich” on brioche:

And, when in Philly, one must eat cream cheese… or cheesecake

When we awoke the following morning at 5 to catch our flight home, we were reassured by the fact that there was no precipitation in either Philly or Chicago (or anywhere in between) and thought we’d make it home. I had a ride all set up in Chicago, and plans for brunch with a friend. We got to the airport and found that our flight was cancelled “due to weather.” WHAT WEATHER?!?!?!?

Again, I got on the phone with US Airways while standing in line to try to get another flight out. Once I was connected (an hour later), I was told that not only was there no other flight to Chicago from Philly yesterday, the next available flight was Tuesday at 1:55 p.m. with a layover in Pittsburgh. And that because they “can’t control the weather” there would be no concessions made for a hotel stay. I asked for a supervisor, hoping that maybe they’d have access to flights that the regular reps couldn’t access (like they did Saturday night with our Jamaica flights.) I had Adam talk to the supervisor who 1) laughed at him when he asked for compensation for a hotel and 2) “messed up” when telling us that the first available flight was Tuesday. It really was Wednesday. After much discussion back and forth, we got seats on the Wednesday flight.

Then we started calculating.

Lunch at the airport Saturday – $20
Blankets for waiting in the airport – $20
Taxi Saturday night – $20
Saturday hotel – $87
Lunch Sunday – $24
Hotel Sunday night – $130
Dinner Sunday night – $50 (room service, ya know)

At that point, we had spent an extra $327 that was supposed to be spending money in Jamaica. Since we were supposed to be at an all-inclusive resort, we hadn’t anticipated spending anything after our second flight Saturday. Could we spend another $300 on hotels for another two nights to fly back to Chicago for ONE day, and another two days of meals out? Sure, we could. Should we have to? Absolutely not. Rather than waiting around and spending more money, we decided to do the truly crazy. We rented a car and drove from Philadelphia to Chicago. A car, actually, just like this:

Yes, we drove 12 hours (rather, Adam drove. I offered, but he wanted the “badge of honor” of driving that long). Rather than spending more of our hard-earned and hard-saved money for hotel rooms and food, we spent HALF of what we would’ve and made it home. We did add:

$180 for the car rental
$60 for 2 tanks of gas
$35 (or so) for food
GRAND TOTAL: $615

Was it crazy? Yes, absolutely. However, since we needed to not be dealing with the extremely-poorly-run Philadelphia airport anymore, and needed some real rest and relaxation, it was worth it. Not one of our meals on the road cost more than $8 total, gas was fairly affordable, and we were OUT OF PHILLY! You can see my photos from the road in this album.

The kicker of the whole situation? If that one US Airways employee hadn’t refused to reroute us on Saturday, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened. We’d be on the beach drinking fruity drinks out of coconuts right now. I don’t ever expect to see any sort of compensation from US Airways, as they have some of the most apathetic, careless, and rude employees I’ve ever encountered, and they truly didn’t care about anyone’s situation. Not to mention the fact that they refused to give us our luggage and sent it on without us. We were told that FAA regulations state that luggage can be on a different flight FOLLOWING its owners, but not ahead of it. So right now, our luggage is in Montego Bay getting a heck of a tan, while we’re back in Chicago for 2 days.

So please, keep your fingers, toes, and whatever else you can, crossed… knock on wood… find a lucky penny… our flight leaves from Chicago to Charlotte to Jamaica on Thursday morning at 6 a.m. CDT. There needs to be no weather, no snow, no NOTHING to keep us from getting to Jamaica. We need this trip, now more than ever.

Thank you for reading my rant. I may add to this after Adam reads it and reminds me of things I left out. I fully intend on sending this to US Airways as well. If anyone has any suggestions for us on how to proceed with them, please let me know.

Technorati Tags: beef, Philadelphia, salad, sandwich, stress, travel

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Mara @ What's For Dinner?, December 22nd 2009 | Tags: beef, Philadelphia, salad, sandwich, stress, travel
Posted in Uncategorized, beef

Guest Post: Colorhungry Comes Clean.

Hi there, everyone! This is Jenny from Colorhungry and I am so honored to be posting on Mara’s blog! It was actually Mara who got me involved in food blogging and I will be forever grateful to her. We became friend about three years ago (Wow! Can’t believe it’s been that long!) and I cannot even tell you how excited I am for her big weekend! I’m so sad that I can’t be there, so like everyone who reads her blog, I really cannot wait to see all of her pictures and hear all about it. Mazel Tov, my dear friend!

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving and that no one is getting trampled shopping today! Last night I went to Michael’s craft store (that’s right- i’m HARDCORE) for some special preview Thanksgiving shopping and dude. I am EXHAUSTED. Maybe it was the tryptophan? Needless to say, I won’t be shopping today. I think i’ll just spend the day in recovery from the carb overload.

Anyway, on with my post. I have a little secret.

Before Friends, Will and Grace and even Sex and the City burst onto the scene and taught us about what it meant to be “on a break,” what it might be like to have a gay best friend, and exactly what “having sex like a man” actually entails, there was the world of Blanche, Sophia, Dorothy and Rose. That’s right- The Golden Girls. As much as society (and my brother) might think this is completely shameful, I have no shame in confessing that I own seasons 1-8 on DVD and watch them quite often. I love every episode. I tried to find one that I could put up here, but alas, I couldn’t pick just one (Yes, I am a supreme nerd. And yes, I am ok with that fact.).

What is so striking to me is that although this show was produced mostly in the 80’s (It started in 1985- One year after I was born!), these older women were on the cutting edge- doing shows about AIDS, STD’s, weight, homosexuality, safe sex, the importance of women being able to stand on their own two feet, and showed how vitally significant a woman’s friendships are in her life. They talked openly about sex and their sex lives and embraced their sexuality, with Blanche Deveraux leading the charge as a slutty southern belle who wasn’t afraid to play with “toys.” They were the Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda of their day, except more witty and with a little more Bengay and dentucreme.

I don’t know what it is that I like so much, but they make me laugh, they make me cry, and they cheer me up when i’m down. Maybe it’s the wit. Maybe it’s the humor. Maybe it’s the cheesecake. For those of you that are reading with scorn and have never seen this show, the secret to all of their problem solving prowess was a good cheesecake to share while they talked it all out.

Dorothy: Ohhh, do you know how many great, late night talks we’ve had at this kitchen table over cheesecake?
Rose: No. How many?
Dorothy (sarcastically): One hundred and forty-six, Rose!

I learned a lot from watching these gals (particularly about the importance of friendships. You can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends) and I have to say that when I get older, I really hope I can be half as cool as these ladies. Any other GG fans out there? What nostalgic shows do you watch? I’ll leave you with a link to my favorite recipe in the world: Pumpkin Pecan Cheesecake. And the pecans? It’s praline…need I say more?

Technorati Tags: dessert, friends, fun, guest post, holiday, wedding

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colorhungry, November 27th 2009 | Tags: dessert, friends, fun, guest post, holiday, wedding
Posted in Uncategorized

Technical Difficulties

My little blog is running slow as molasses today, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for a fun post… and to answer the inevitable question that seems to come after many people’s “suspenseful” posts lately…

I DID NOT QUIT MY JOB.

Back tomorrow with a Bender Sushi post!! CANT WAIT TO SEE JENN!!!!

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Mara @ What's For Dinner?, October 5th 2009 | Tags: technical difficulty
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A Big Fat Thank You

I’m beyond overwhelmed by the number of wonderful, supportive, amazing comments on my post yesterday. I cannot get over how fantastic this blogging community is. So thank you, all of you, for your comments and stories. They really made me feel like less of a big fat nutcase and a bit more normal. I never could’ve anticipated your response.
So, thank you all, from the bottom of my heart for helping to scrape me up and put me back together.
Stay tuned for a very special cute food Saturday, and don’t forget to enter my coconut flour giveaway. You all deserve to win! Sorry for the lack of links, but our internet is down and I’m phlogging: phone blogging!
Thank you again, wonderful readers!
SS

Technorati Tags: thank you, weight loss

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Mara @ What's For Dinner?, July 11th 2009 | Tags: thank you, weight loss
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Cute Food Saturday!

Welcome back to the FIFTEENTH installment of Cute Food Saturday, a “quinceañera” of sorts! If this is your first time here, you can click here for fourteen more pages of adorable and amazing food.

Let’s get the cuteness started, shall we?

: Link!

: Wall-E and Eve

: Kirby? Yoshi? AWESOME!!!

: If they go together, you HAVE to eat 3 :)

: Owl cupcakes for a certain owl-loving friend-o-mine

: Mini Cooper made of rice

: Penguin bento

: Don’t know if I could drink that latte!

: Boating Bento

: Yes that’s a cupcake! Thanks Foodie McBody!

Did you notice the new little picture over there? Right below the blogroll picture? You can now become a fan of What’s For Dinner on Facebook!

Have a fabulous Saturday all!

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Mara @ What's For Dinner?, June 6th 2009 | Tags: cute food
Posted in Cute Food Saturday, Uncategorized

A Chat With MyRecipes.com

logosrch Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to talk with Holley Johnson Grainger, an editor at MyRecipes.com. I was contacted by their publicist after commenting on Meghann’s blog about how much I loved using MyRecipes.com for recipe ideas, and was asked if I wanted an opportunity to do my very own interview! I was really excited, on one hand, as I check MyRecipes.com nearly every day, and it was almost like talking to a celebrity! On the other hand, I was pretty nervous since it was my first non-school-related interview, but I got a couple question ideas from coworkers and friends.

Holley’s area of expertise on MyRecipes.com is “Restaurant Eating at Home” which interested me for obvious reasons. I asked her what was meant by “restaurant eating”, and she told me that what they did was take “iconic” dishes from national chain restaurants, such as the BBQ Chicken Pizza from California Pizza Kitchen, a Caesar salad from T.G.I. Fridays, and many others. Then, they did two levels of “at home” replacements: cost efficiency and health improvement.

In the “cost efficiency” arena, the replacements were simple. She explained to me that in order to buy a simple dinner at California Pizza Kitchen consisting of their BBQ Chicken pizza, a side salad, and a beer, it would cost about $19 per person. To recreate the same meal at home with grocery store ingredients? A mere $4.25! The main reason for this is that the markup at a restaurant is huge, whereas we only pay the grocery store cost if we cook at home. She sent me this budget-focused story that I wanted to pass on to you.

From a health perspective, the replacements were a bit more challenging, but still easy enough. The main “substitute” for the higher-fat, fried, or cream-based restaurant favorites is to use simply, lower-fat and calorie preparations instead! Bake the chicken for a chicken parmesan instead of frying, use low-fat cheeses, and use smaller amounts of olive oil as a substitute for butter. Another huge way to save with fat and calories is to simply watch serving sizes. The average restaurant serving of a dish like chicken parmesan can be up to 4 “normal” servings! Holley also sent me a health-focused story about restaurant eating at home that I think will interest all of you!

If you haven’t yet checked out MyRecipes.com, I urge you to do so (after searching my site first, of course!) They have a myriad of healthy, cost efficiant, and delicious recipes from magazines such as Cooking Light and Southern Living. The recipes are also quite “accessible”, with easy-to-find ingredients and simple instructions.

If you check out MyRecipes.com, please let me know what you think of it! Thank you, Holley for all your cooperation and putting up with my obnoxious questions!

Technorati Tags: interview

Good vs. Bad

14 Comments

SkinMD Natural Giveaway Winner!

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Ask and Ye Shall Receive

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Honeymoon, Take 1 or Why US Airways Spent Our Honeymoon Money

52 Comments

Guest Post: Colorhungry Comes Clean.

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Technical Difficulties

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A Big Fat Thank You

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Cute Food Saturday!

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A Chat With MyRecipes.com

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To All the Mamas…

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