Danielle Altshuler Wiley

I'm a food-loving mom with two awesome kids, one high-maintenance husband and a nasty addiction to knowing everything.

I started this blog in December of 2005 in an effort to get through a separation from my husband. Since then, things have changed a bit. We are back together, we have relocated to Chicago, and the blog has become so much more than just a cheap form of therapy. It is part of my life, and, hard as it is for me to believe, a part of others' lives as well.

I struggle with what to write here as I have so many disparate interests. The mom stuff is central to who I am at this point in my life, so the inclusion of kid stories is inevitable. And, my love of food is enormous, so that also plays a starring role. But, I love so many other things, and have many other interests. I am opinionated about everything, even when I'm dead wrong.

Here are some more tidbits if you haven't read enough:

• I like knowing everything about everything.
• I am obsessed with food, eating and cooking.
• I grew up in New York, and have lived in Toledo, Ann Arbor, and now Chicago.
• If liver is on a menu, I'll usually order it.
• My favorite color is hot pink.
• I spend way too much time on my laptop.
• I wrote my college essay on the Frugal Gourmet.
• My dog's name is Friday, and she thinks she is human.
• I graduated from Vassar College in '95 with a BA in Sociology.
• My senior thesis was a Foucauldian analysis of the daytime talk show.
• I think cheese is the probably the greatest thing there is.
• I am dismayed by those who don't love food. I think it points to personality deficiencies.
• I love television, a trait which I have, sadly, passed on to my four-year-old.
• My daughter Dylan and my son Max are the two coolest kids in the universe.