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After over 3 years of sharing my quarter-life cooking with you all, it’s with a heavy heart and a grumbling stomach, that I end this chapter of my virtual food story and say goodbye to BGSK.

If the mid-twenties have taught me anything so far, it’s that this time of life is one of constant transition and questioning. Not just for me. Most of my dinner dates recently have been dominated by exasperated, anxious, and excited friends across the table, expressing pangs of uncertainty related to jobs, relationships, finances, and that big scary capital letter term: THE FUTURE.

Over the past few months, as I grappled with those same tough questions—where do I want to go in life? What makes me happy? Should I really be spending so much money on One Kings Lane? —It became clear that what I need is a change.

Pressing that life “reset” button is scary, but also exciting. When I sat down to write this final post, I thought a lot about the last big change I made, over two years ago, when I decided to end my stint in corporate America, sans gold fish or Renée Zellweger, and move my cubical to my small kitchen for good. The hardest part then, as it is now, was saying goodbye to the people I worked with. Today, there are so many more of you who have made my “job” over the past 3+ years an amazing experience, and I am so grateful to have gotten to know you all.

Creamy polenta has always seemed like a rather daunting dish to serve a crowd of guests. It takes longer to cook than one would imagine, and in my experience, it can transform from a soft, pillowy cushion into a rubbery, coarse brick in seconds. Because of this, I’ve always intentionally gone for the brick version for dinner parties.

Recently, I came across this Bittman article and discovered a different way of preparing polenta. Instead of pouring the cornmeal into boiling water in a steady stream and whisking furiously to prevent any lumps from forming, you start by creating a slurry …

These past two months, Mag Club ESP has been in full effect. And what was on the menu? Beans, beans, and nothing but beans.

At Julie’s, we had falafel, spicy black bean dip, two types of lentils, white bean and cabbage salad, and hummus. A few weeks ago at Michelle’s, the spread was a little more diverse, but no sooner had I whipped out my Tupperware of Spanish Rice with Crispy Chickpeas than I noticed Kate’s bowl of roasted chickpeas in full crunchy glory sitting on the coffee table right before me.

Roasted chickpeas have become a potluck go-to of …

Top of my New Year’s Resolution list this year was to move out. Being 26 years old and living at home is just not a sustainable state of affairs. And yet, all of a sudden, it was 2012, and I realized I had sustained the situation for seven whole months.

After a week of literally doing nothing but climb fourth-floor walk-ups only to discover that the apartment at the top had a dorm-style mini fridge and no dishwasher, I lucked out and found an adorable studio in Chelsea. When I signed the lease less than 24 hours later (yeah, that’s …

It might appear in the transcript of my BGSK life that I’ve become a bit of a dinner party delinquent. This is partially, but not entirely true. I still try to have people over for a meal once a week, which is certainly down from the 2-3 night frequency that in part gave birth to this site, but by no means qualifies me as a bore (or so I keep telling myself).

The problem is, I have become a bit of a snooze when it comes to my menu. I’ve been cooking a lot of my tried and true (and …

Consider me slightly late to the party, but recently, I’ve been having a love affair with Heidi Swanson.

Even though I am a long-time devotee of Peter Berley, another vegetarian food icon, in my post-college carnivorous state, I don’t think I gave proper mind to the more veg-centric food bloggers out there. Or, at least, in my own experimentation with their recipes.

One of my private chef clients is vegan, and it’s opened up my eyes and my palate to some very intriguing possibilities - and Heidi has been at the helm of many of them. When I came …