Five Food Centric Ideas For Your Wedding

by Leave a Comment

Rebecca McKinney

I was born a foodie. My dad is a chef, baker, and restaurant owner and my mom might as well be because she owns whatever kitchen she walks into. I grew up working in my family’s restaurant and bakery in Pawling, New York – McKinney and Doyle. I started behind the bakery counter at 12 years old after begging my parents to let me start working. At 16 I worked as a hostess. By 18 I was serving tables and training behind the bar where I then worked every other weekend throughout my college career. Even now, when I am visiting my family in New York, I help out where I’m needed. To make a long story short, the food and restaurant industry has been my life for as long as I can remember.

I wanted to create this blog for a few reasons. First and foremost, to share tips, tricks, and knowledge about the food and beverage industry in general but also to help people see a different side of the restaurant world. Every restaurant has a totally unique culture and world within it. I want to help open people’s eyes to more than how fast the service is or how easy or hard it is to secure a reservation.

So, thanks for stopping by! I welcome your ideas, input, and feedback and hope you enjoy!

Eat well & travel often,

Becky McKinney

Latest posts by Rebecca McKinney (see all)

 

I am currently sitting in the airport with my fiancé, Matt, preparing to take off for the final wedding of the year (and might I add, the one I am most excited for as we will be celebrating Matt’s older brother, Mark, and his amazing bride, Becky – yes there will soon be two Becky Boland’s). Anyway, Matt and I were just chatting about the many Five Food Centric Ideas For Your Weddingweddings we’ve attended over the last few years and we realized how many really cool things that our loved ones have done on the big day. We’ve seen homemade photo-booths, full rooms devoted to foods from all over the world, incredible bands, engaging DJs, donut walls, and so much more. While we’ve had a blast attending all of the weddings we’ve been lucky enough to receive an invite to, I think it’s only natural that we always circle back to our own and what we wan that day to look like. Early on in our engagement we decided that come wedding day, we wanted our main focus to be on the food. I’m not going to give away any spoilers as to what we have planned for our nuptials next fall but I will share some of the unique ideas we came across during the planning process. So fellow foodie brides/grooms to be, this post is for you: Five Food Centric Ideas For Your Wedding.Continue Reading

To Salt or Not to Salt? The Answer is Both

by Leave a Comment

Rebecca McKinney

I was born a foodie. My dad is a chef, baker, and restaurant owner and my mom might as well be because she owns whatever kitchen she walks into. I grew up working in my family’s restaurant and bakery in Pawling, New York – McKinney and Doyle. I started behind the bakery counter at 12 years old after begging my parents to let me start working. At 16 I worked as a hostess. By 18 I was serving tables and training behind the bar where I then worked every other weekend throughout my college career. Even now, when I am visiting my family in New York, I help out where I’m needed. To make a long story short, the food and restaurant industry has been my life for as long as I can remember.

I wanted to create this blog for a few reasons. First and foremost, to share tips, tricks, and knowledge about the food and beverage industry in general but also to help people see a different side of the restaurant world. Every restaurant has a totally unique culture and world within it. I want to help open people’s eyes to more than how fast the service is or how easy or hard it is to secure a reservation.

So, thanks for stopping by! I welcome your ideas, input, and feedback and hope you enjoy!

Eat well & travel often,

Becky McKinney

Latest posts by Rebecca McKinney (see all)

Let’s be real for a second. Salt is the spice of life. We use it in cooking and baking because it goes with sweet and savory. It balances out a meal, livens up other flavors, and turns a bland dish into something worth writing home about. An under-salted dish is extremely underwhelming yet an over-salted dish can often be deemed inedible. To salt or not to salt?Anyway, before I go off on a tangent, I think we can all agree on the fact that salt plays a really important role in our kitchens. But there are more ways to add salt to a dish than throwing another pinch into the pot. Today I want to talk about three ingredients that you can add to a dish to kick the salt level up a notch without adding actual salt.Continue Reading

How to Make the Most of Leftover Greens

by 2 Comments

Rebecca McKinney

I was born a foodie. My dad is a chef, baker, and restaurant owner and my mom might as well be because she owns whatever kitchen she walks into. I grew up working in my family’s restaurant and bakery in Pawling, New York – McKinney and Doyle. I started behind the bakery counter at 12 years old after begging my parents to let me start working. At 16 I worked as a hostess. By 18 I was serving tables and training behind the bar where I then worked every other weekend throughout my college career. Even now, when I am visiting my family in New York, I help out where I’m needed. To make a long story short, the food and restaurant industry has been my life for as long as I can remember.

I wanted to create this blog for a few reasons. First and foremost, to share tips, tricks, and knowledge about the food and beverage industry in general but also to help people see a different side of the restaurant world. Every restaurant has a totally unique culture and world within it. I want to help open people’s eyes to more than how fast the service is or how easy or hard it is to secure a reservation.

So, thanks for stopping by! I welcome your ideas, input, and feedback and hope you enjoy!

Eat well & travel often,

Becky McKinney

Latest posts by Rebecca McKinney (see all)

I’m just gonna say it. I don’t like salad. Well no, it’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just that for me, it’s probably the easiest meal to get sick of and it happens at lightning speed. The problem is that every now and then I’ll crave one (usually after a weekend of eating

Photo Credit: Epicurious (link to recipe in body)
Photo Credit: Epicurious (link to recipe in body)

junk) but it’s hard to buy ingredients for just ONE salad. Alas, I am a waster of greens, which is another struggle because I hate wasting food. Lucky for me, and for anybody else who tosses head after head of lettuce or bag after bag of mixed greens, there are several ways to use up your rejected salad materials. It’s simple really … cook em!Continue Reading

10 Make Ahead Tailgating Recipes for Football Season

by Leave a Comment

Rebecca McKinney

I was born a foodie. My dad is a chef, baker, and restaurant owner and my mom might as well be because she owns whatever kitchen she walks into. I grew up working in my family’s restaurant and bakery in Pawling, New York – McKinney and Doyle. I started behind the bakery counter at 12 years old after begging my parents to let me start working. At 16 I worked as a hostess. By 18 I was serving tables and training behind the bar where I then worked every other weekend throughout my college career. Even now, when I am visiting my family in New York, I help out where I’m needed. To make a long story short, the food and restaurant industry has been my life for as long as I can remember.

I wanted to create this blog for a few reasons. First and foremost, to share tips, tricks, and knowledge about the food and beverage industry in general but also to help people see a different side of the restaurant world. Every restaurant has a totally unique culture and world within it. I want to help open people’s eyes to more than how fast the service is or how easy or hard it is to secure a reservation.

So, thanks for stopping by! I welcome your ideas, input, and feedback and hope you enjoy!

Eat well & travel often,

Becky McKinney

Latest posts by Rebecca McKinney (see all)

If you want to talk football season, I am not your girl but if you want to talk football season snacks, then you’ve hit the jackpot. I am the self-proclaimed queen of snacking and since my fiancé and I closed on a house earlier this month, our home has already been dubbed THE place to be for Sunday game day. As soon as Matt mentioned his excitement for the season to begin, my brain jumped to all of the things I can make so that it’s enjoyable for me too. I could probably put together a decent sized book of all my favorite appetizers and snacks that are perfect for game day at home or a live tailgate, but today I figured I’d start out with 10 of my favorite recipes that can be made ahead of time and enjoyed cold because honestly, who doesn’t want to enjoy an easy Sunday without the need to prepare and cook?Continue Reading