Welcome to UrbanMonique!



Howdy! I’m Eben Atwater, (The Urb of UrbanMonique – Monique is my wife Monica – it’s a nickname thing…) This site is dedicated to great home cooking – You’ll find an eclectic mix of recipes designed to be clear and concise – stuff you not only want to cook, but will be able to easily translate to your own kitchen.

I’ve spent 15 years cooking for a living – what I share here are recipes and techniques that really work. There are hundreds of posts filled with great dishes, all seasoned with a little history, science, and lore. What you won’t find is advertising, or recipes that don’t do what they claim they will. Enjoy, dive in, and as I say here so often, make it yours.

Over there to the left, (or down below on a mobile device), you’ll find basic navigation, search, subscribe, recent post, and contact boxes. It’s a simple site for a reason, and I think you’ll find it easy to poke around – if you don’t, let me know.


Here are my latest posts

  • Carne Adobada, Mexican Marinating Magnificence

    It’s impossible to say where exactly adobada, (or sometimes, adovada), comes from. Generally, it’s a safe bet that northern Mexico, past and present, is the source. Adobada in Catalan means marinated, which doesn’t give a whole bunch of clues at to what we’re supposed to marinate with. As it turns out, that’s OK though, because…


  • Real Deal Wild Rice

    Rice is a delightful main, side, or primary ingredient year round, but shines best in the warm months, when cold rice-powered salads enter the fray. And if you’re going to make those, then wild rice should be your grass of choice. Real deal wild rice is absolutely fabulous – the combination of flavor, texture, scent,…


  • Garden Status Report

    Wherever you live, you can grace your place with a garden to some degree if you want to. Our parcel is really small, but we take full advantage of what we have. There’s just about zero grass here – everything is dedicated to gardens and landscaping. I started out front and did, ah… a little…