Post-Easter Cooking

The Easter Bunny was kind enough to leave a brand-new copy of Sara's Secrets for Weeknight Meals in my basket this year. (Better yet, Sara herself had signed it at Fox & Obel in Chicago!) Fox & Obel is one of those places where I could never afford to buy groceries, but I always stop there because I find it to be a great source of cooking and baking ideas. One of my favorite things to do there is to walk all the way to the back corner of the store, where there's a giant window looking into the room where all the pastry chefs work. I could watch them all day!

Anyway, about Sara's Secrets. So far, I've picked out three recipes to try: the Mexican Chicken Salad, Lemon Chicken, and Potato-Crusted Salmon with Red Wine sauce. I really appreciate the fact that the cookbook lists both hands-on time and total preparation time for each recipe. It's funny--for whatever reason I've never paid much attention to Sara before. Kind of like high school crushes, my obsessions with Food Network chefs come and go. First it was Rachael, then Giada, then the Barefoot Contessa. I'd say I'm still pretty obsessed with the Barefoot Contessa right now--she has this wonderful sense of how people like to eat. She can cook for the masses, but with such grace and style.

Time for a reader poll: Who is YOUR current Food Network obsession?