Is there actually a better way to spend your birthday week than cold plunging into a freezing Eastern Sierra lake after a brutal uphill hike? This past late August, I decided to “celebrate” turning forty-six years young and still adventurous—even if a few of my body parts have begun submitting formal complaints—by camping in the …
This morning, as I sweated my way up Agnew Pass in the Eastern Sierra, dreaming about eventually throwing my overheated body into Gem Lake at nearly 9,500 feet, I kept muttering one very motivational thought under my breath: If Dolly Parton could spend fifty years walking around in five-inch heels, I could make it up …
This has been the summer when I have said hell no to turning my oven on. And it’s all thanks to my obsession with the air fryer. And yes, that even includes taking my air fryer on a camping trip, because It’s My Birthday and I will do what I want! Including inhaling my favorite …
Here in the rural mountain town of Big Bear Lake, California, you would think our local bakeries could manage to stay out of controversy. You have one job, small-town bakeries: make me fatter so I feel morally obligated to hike ten miles tomorrow. Sell me a croissant. Hand me a cookie. Charge me nine dollars …
You just spent three hours in the kitchen cooking up a full-on Indian feast—cumin seeds and star anise blooming, onions caramelizing, neighbors suddenly “just stopping by” to see what smells amazing. This is five-star, auntie-approved, this-side-of-Mumbai-level cooking. So, how come how to take food photos seems mind-blowing to this home chef? You pull out your …