Newsletter Archive

Easy Chicken Recipes 06/07/2011

All Things Avocado 05/03/2011

Meatball Madness 04/14/2011

Old-Fashioned Recipes 03/22/2011

Pancake Day! 03/08/2011

Cherry Cheer-up! 02/22/2011

Desperation Date Night 02/08/2011

Italian Dinner Party 01/25/2011

It's Soup Time! 01/11/2011

Survival dinners for the holidays 12/14/2010

Cooking with Canned Pumpkin 11/18/2010

Favorite Foods for Fall 11/04/2010

Breakfast for Dinner 10/14/2010

Not Just Beans and Rice! 9/30/2010

Cookies Galore! 9/15/2010

What's Your Favorite Cocktail? 8/20/2010

We Love Avocados 8/06/2010

Summer Sauces and Salsas 7/20/2010

Summer Grilling for Father's Day 6/18/2010

Sensational Summer Salads 6/4/2010

Berry Season is Here 5/21/2010

Cinco de Mayo Celebration 5/5/2010

Spring Picnic Sandwiches 4/23/2010

Spring Asparagus Recipes 4/8/2010

Salad Dressings for Spring Greens 3/24/2010

We're ready for warm weather drinks! 3/5/2010

Happy Valentine's Day 2/11/2010

Cooking for One and Two 1/25/2010

Pumpkin-Pear Muffins 12/15/09

Happy Thanksgiving! 11/23/09

Come Join the Conversation 11/9/09

Amazing Hot Fudge Sauce 10/19/09

Peach Season 9/10/09

Stir-Up Dinner, Fast! 8/12/09

Nothing to Trifle With! 7/29/09

It's Grilling Time! 7/15/09

Summer Sipping 6/25/09

Got Strawberries? 6/10/09

Microwave Risotto, Really! 5/28/09

Kitchen Scoop is Here! 5/28/09

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About Beverly Mills

Hey there! I can't seem to shake my Southern speak even though life has taken me pretty far from the one-stoplight town where I grew up along the coast of North Carolina. My roots there still run deep although I now live in Washington, D.C. Nearly everything I know about food that's really worth knowing I learned growing up in that small Southern town. It seems like I spent half my childhood working in the vegetable garden behind my grandparents' house. I shelled peas and shucked corn until my thumbs got blisters. But then we'd eat those vegetables all winter long, and I'm here to testify that nothing tastes better in January than fresh corn you flash-froze in July!

For me and my family, food has always been serious business. My dad digs fresh clams and makes gallons of chowder from scratch. (The adapted Desperation recipe is here on Kitchen Scoop!) My grandmother was known across three counties for her melt-in-your-mouth pound cake. My mom has a third (!) freezer of emergency food for any community need that springs up on short notice.

It's a lot to live up to.

So even though you might like to know that I've been a journalist for three decades, doing everything from city hall reporter to food editor and restaurant critic for The Miami Herald, that's not the reason I feel qualified to write about food. It's the fact that I simply have cooking in my bones.

My husband Anders Gyllenhaal and I are parents of Sam, newly graduated from Elon University, and daughter Grey, a student at the University of Maryland in College Park. When I'm not reading about food, dreaming about food and planning the next meal, I read a lot, paint, walk my dog and head to the beach every chance I get.

About Alicia Ross

Hmm, where do I start? My favorite food memories often come from places and people - where I am and who I'm with instead of what we ate. Simply sitting down to dinner with my girls ranks right up at the top for me. While I have shared some pretty amazing meals with kids in some pretty amazing places, I remember the conversation and the laughter usually far longer than I remember an elegant sauce or exotic flavors. (That's why I carry a little notebook with me all the time so I can jot down ingredients and flavors for future recipes in my own kitchen. Geeky, I know, but there you have it!)

I have a lot in common with Beverly, and people often think we're sisters instead of just best friends and writing and cooking partners. (We do kind of look alike—especially now that somehow our hairstylists use a similar tint!) I also grew up in a small North Carolina town—Mint Hill, just outside of Charlotte—graduated from The School of Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and am a former newspaper gal. (A food columnist for The [Raleigh] News & Observer.)

As far as the resume goes, sometimes I feel like I've had several lives all wrapped into one. But I keep coming back to my kitchen where so much of my life happens. The best discussions and the best food happen there. The best gossip and the best debates happen there. The most laughter and often the tears happen there. (And no, not just because I've burned the biscuits once again!)

I live in Raleigh, NC. Both of my girls attend East Carolina University. So my nest is empty... A friend once told me to look at this season as a new beginning instead of an ending, so that's what I am trying to do.! Some days it's exciting and some days it scares the hell out of me!

When I have extra time (when is the last time that happened?), I love to play in the dirt in my back yard garden, be behind the lens of a camera and get grimy while building houses in Mexico. If you've read this far, thanks for coming to Beverly and my combined online kitchen! We hope you'll feel at home here. Please join the conversation!

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Links to third-party Web sites may be provided solely for your information and convenience, or to provide additional information for various other goods and services. If you use these links, you will leave our Site. This Privacy Statement does not cover the information practices of those Web sites linked to our Site, nor do we control their content or privacy policies. We suggest that you carefully review the privacy policies of each site you visit.

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Contact Us

For Our Readers and Visitors

Have something you want us to know? Need to ask a question? We'd love to hear from you. Both Beverly and Alicia check email and respond when possible. If you want to contact only one of us (specifically), please indicate that in the email subject line. Thanks!

Email us at: tellus@kitchenscoop.com

For Members of the Media

If you need more info about our books, please contact our publisher at the address below. (Only official media representatives should use this contact information. Other requests will not be answered.)

Publicity Department
Workman Pubilishing
(212) 614-7771
andrea@workman.com

For Newspaper Editors

If you need to reach United Media about the Desperation Dinners! syndicated column, please contact the appropriate office for your questions.

United Media, New York Offices : 1-800-221-4816

• Questions about purchasing the column or companion photograph? Contact United Media Sales.
• Questions about accessing the feature (column or photograph)? Contact United Media Client Services.
• Questions about the content of the feature? Contact United Media Editorial Services.

Shop for Kitchenware and More

Welcome to our shop. We hope you like what you’ll find here, but mostly we hope it will be helpful.

Product Categories:

Small Appliances | Must-have Tools | The Basics (Equipment) | Specialty Foods and Other Stuff

Small Appliances

Not to clutter up your countertops, but certain small appliances more than pull their weight on busy nights.

Immersion Blender By Cuisinart

Hand-held blenders -- also called immersion blenders or stick blenders -- save time and cleanup by letting you puree soups right in the pot. (Byron's Broccoli Cheese Soup is just one example.) This one is in a mid-price range, but other brands work, too.

Rival 6-Quart Smart-Pot Programmable Slow Cooker

We test all of our recipes in Rival brand Crock Pots and find the 6-quart model works for almost everything. Being able to make Alicia's Risotto with Gourmet Mushrooms or Beverly's Scrumptious Beef Stew alone are worth having one.

Must-have Tools

These handy, inexpensive gadgets will make cooking a lot easier.

Mojito Muddler

Whip up a Mojito in no time using this stainless muddler.

Shrimp Peeler/ Deveiner

Makes quick work of peeling and deveining shrimp. For other alternatives, check our buying shrimp blog post.

Microplane Coarse Grater

Ever struggled to get perfect zest off a lemon? Not anymore…

Lemon Reamer

Get all the juice without all the cleanup.

Hamburger Press

Makes perfect patties every time, especially when you get big packs of beef on sale!

The Basics (Equipment)

Some kitchen equipment is standard operating procedure for us. Here are a couple of basics for starters.

Nonstick Skillet

About half the recipes in the Desperation Dinners and Cheap. Fast. Good! cookbooks are made in a skillet like this. For more information, check out our blog.

Cast Iron Skillet

When you need one, you need one! Browns like a dream.

Specialty Foods and Other Stuff

Sometimes supermarkets are slow to stock specialty ingredients. Who knows why, but these are must-haves for certain recipes.

Arborio Rice

Arborio is the only rice that gives you the creamy wonderful texture in risotto.

Chipotle Mini Cubes

Quick alternative to reconstituting dried chilies. Perfect for Tex-Mex and especially our Copycat Chipotle Chicken.

Clam Base

Can't make Almost Dad's Clam Chowder in 20 minutes without clam base.

Burt's Bees Coconut Foot Creme

Yes it's for your feet, but Beverly swears by it! Read all about it on her blog.

Cookbooks by Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross

People often ask us which cookbook is our favorite. That's like asking us to pick a favorite child. Each one's different, with its own personality and purposes.

But what makes them ours is simple: Recipes and tips to make daily life a little easier and more delicious for everyone. We hope you'll try them out and let us know what you think.

Desperation Dinners!

A few ingredients have changed over the years, but some things never seem to change for us: Busy cooks need recipes they can count on That's what you'll get with this, our first cookbook. We created these recipes with a stop watch and an attitude -- that you don't have to kill yourself to fix a healthy, home-cooked dinner for those you love. More about Desperation Dinners!

Click here to buy the book.

Desperation Entertaining!

Socially inclined but time-deprived? Want to have friends for dinner but getting your act together seems impossible? Yep. We know exactly how you feel, and that's why we wrote our entertaining cookbook. A lot of our friends told us they didn't believe a recipe could be desperate and still good enough for company -- until they tried the recipes in this book! Some of our absolute favorites are in these pages!  More about Desperation Entertaining!

Click here to buy the book.

Cheap. Fast. Good!

Need money fast? Look no further than your kitchen. If you're dismayed by rising grocery bills and shrinking bank accounts, this is the book for you. With more than 200 recipes for quick budget meals, you'll be wondering how you ever made it through the week without this book! More about Cheap. Fast. Good!

Click here to buy the book.

The scoop on us

Who are we? That depends on the day: Cook, Chauffeur, Yard Service -- you probably know the drill. Who we are depends on the mood, but put us in the kitchen (especially together) and magic happens. It's a lot of fun and we feel incredibly grateful to do work that we love.

Beverly Mills

    Hi! I'm Beverly Mills, and although I now live in Washington, D.C., nearly everything I know about food that's really worth knowing I learned from my parents and grandparents in a small town along the North Carolina coast. My husband, Anders Gyllenhaal, and I have a son Sam, a musician living in Nashville, and a daughter Grey, a junior at the University of Maryland. More about Beverly Mills.

Alicia Ross

Hi, I'm Alicia Ross. I am a Southern girl born and bred, so the love of good food runs deep in my bones. I live in Raleigh, N.C., I have two daughters, Hannah, 21, and Rachel, 19, who are both Proud Pirates at ECU - good thing we all love the color purple!  More about Alicia Ross.

About our column

Desperation Dinners, the newspaper column we write in cooperation with United Features Syndicate, has evolved as ingredients and cooking styles have changed and as our children have grown from toddlers to young adults. But our mission is always the same: We aim to help readers prepare delicious, healthy, home-cooked meals in a hurry. When we're working on recipes for Desperation Dinners we cook with a stopwatch to create dishes that, usually, take only 20 minutes or less. You'll find many of those recipes right here on Kitchen Scoop and in our three cookbooks. We're on an ever-expanding quest to find the best recipes and most helpful shortcuts, tips, products and secrets for easy clean-up. Now, through our blog and your comments on our site, we're counting on all of our readers to help us make our recipes the best that they can be!

A Scoop of This and That

Join us for just about everything you'd discuss in the kitchen - recipes galore, travel scoop and just regular convo with occasional thoughts on life in the Empty Nest.