Martha+Tom

Posts by Tom

What if: Sweet Baby Ray’s as salad dressing??

THINK about it

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Can you make good pizza in an hour?

It’s the kind of claim I’d normally dismiss out of hand: a from-scratch Neapolitan style pie in about one hour, start-to-finish. Everyone knows you need at least an overnight fermentation to get good pizza dough, and two days doesn’t hurt. If it had just been published on some foodie blog I probably wouldn’t have given […]

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Back on the pizza train

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 […]

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Cook’s Illustrated, responsible food writing, and the ‘fartichoke’

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 […]

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photo of bowl of green grapes covered in sour cream with caramelized brown sugar and pecans

Sorry New York Times, grape salad is bullshit

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 […]

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Asparagus, again

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 […]

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Spring time, spring rolls

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 […]

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Shells with pea shoots and cream

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 […]

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Midtown Farmers Market 2013 season opens with a splash

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 […]

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Black Sheep's "Number 8" recreated at home

Pizzas I have stolen

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 […]

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