Choo choo! Hadn’t made pizza in, like, forever. This one’s with New York style crust from Peter Reinhart’s American Pie, fermented overnight. Topped with green olives and spicy salami. On the bike ride home, I considered my limitations, size wise. My pizza steel is 14×16″. My peel is 13″ wide. So 13″ is my pizza […]

It was all born out of desperation. It’s March, the dead time. As I seem to write on this blog every spring, we’ve reached the point in the year where we’re tired of eating the heavy winter dishes, but there’s really nothing fresh yet to speak of. It’s warmer, so we haven’t been craving a hearty […]

Few things raise Minnesotans’ collective glee quite like when our frosty state earns mention in the New York Times – particularly when America’s paper of record gets Minnesota very, very wrong. Remember “Mort’s”? And so we greeted with a good deal of mock outrage and secret merriment the Times’ strange assertion, in an article about the Thanksgiving […]

We got a little surprise at the  Midtown Farmers Market yesterday. Only the second week in May, but Peter and Carmen had a few small bundles of asparagus. We almost missed them – it pays to make a couple of passes through the market. The first asparagus of the year is always a cause for […]

Safe to say stew season is behind us. Now it’s time for fresh. None of this stuff is really growing in Minnesota yet in spring – the grass isn’t even growing yet. Nevertheless, the craving for raw vegetables is there and international shipping provides. Martha pointed out that as far as assemble-at-the-table meals go, spring […]

In the early season, when trips to the farmers market yield just a few bits of local produce, the pressure’s on. As a cook, you’ve got only one or two chances to enjoy the fruits of the land before it’s back to the winter slog of canned whatever, dairy, starch and meat. So you’d better […]

I know, I know, Minnesota, you’re tired of hearing about how crappy the weather has been. So I won’t dwell on the fact that today, May 4th, the opening day of the 2013 Midtown Farmers Market season, didn’t exactly present us with “farmers market weather.” 35° and rainy isn’t unbearable but it doesn’t make you […]

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and it’s true. After all, why bother copying something you don’t like? Take pizza. There are the classics: margherita, marinara, pepperoni – everyone can make these. But when a pizzeria comes up with a truly novel and interesting combination of toppings, what can one do but […]

It started with an innocent question, fueled perhaps by a too strong Blue Moon cocktail: “Can you put lemon slices on a pizza?” I thought immediately of chicken piccata, a dish notable for including whole lemon slices – rind and all, in the sauce. If it works over pasta, it should work on pizza too. […]

The word ‘oatmeal’ technically just refers to dried oats – be they steel-cut, rolled or quick – or a porridge made thereof. Long habit and family tradition, though, conjure up a whole dish for me: oats cooked soft, mixed with raisins and milk and generously sprinkled with brown sugar – you know you’ve got enough when […]