I wish I could tell you that what follows is my grandmother’s world-famous recipe for beef tongue, a treasured family secret passed down through the generations. It is not. While I expect my grandma has a beef tongue recipe – she grew up on a farm, after all – that recipe would never have made […]

For someone who basically refused the meal as a teenager, as an adult breakfast has captured a special place in my heart. Part of the reason for this must be my discovery that breakfast needn’t involve sickly sweet grains swimming in milk – I prefer butter and salt to jam and honey on the breakfast […]

One of the greatest pleasures the table offers is a leisurely couple of hours spent snacking over wine: embracing the Spanish concept picar – just a nibble here and there. For something so delicious and satisfying, a dinner of tapas is also easy to prepare: we already had a chorizo in the fridge from Olympic Provisions in […]

Last week was the first time I’ve ever noticed fresh ginger at the farmers market, and, indeed the first I’d ever seen ginger so fresh as to still have stalks attached – who knew ginger had stalks? The scent of this ultra-fresh ginger is a joy to take in – grassier and spicier than the […]

My family is not Greek, but one of my favorite dishes my mom made when I was  growing up was moussaka – I’m not sure where or why she got the recipe. The version she made was roughly the Greek one, layered and and served warm (but there are many different versions). I wasn’t striving […]

And sometimes you don’t. An idea for dinner, that is. It sounds odd, coming when the fields of the midwest are at their most bountiful, producing innumerable varieties of colorful, ripe produce. Mother Nature is providing to her fullest. But Mother Nature threw us a curveball this week, in the form of 90ºF+ day after […]

Maybe it’s because of the name – chanterelle – that I always assumed these wild mushrooms were exclusively a California thing. Surely such a frou frou term couldn’t describe anything growing in the meat-and-potatoes midwest, where you might more expect something hardier, say a beefsteak (which, incidentally, doesn’t seem to grow in the Midwest. But […]

Perhaps you hadn’t noticed, but I haven’t been posting much lately. This is mostly for positive reasons: fun and interesting social engagements, steadily progressing training runs in anticipation of a marathon in October, excellent meals eaten outside the home, all working together to spare you of my culinary musings. Related to the aforementioned activities or […]

“OH MY GOD, A MOREL!” I cried, after having given up the search and nearly abandoning the woods. Tom, a more seasoned mushroomer, hissed for me to, “Keep it down.” While it’s likely obvious, I have only been out looking for mushrooms, or mushrooming, once before (twice if you count our hike in Muir Woods outside San […]

Ramps and I started off on the wrong foot this year. It’s nothing personal against ramps; I just want to hate them because they’re so hip. But that’s not really fair. Ramps are pretty great: for one thing, they’re members of the onion family, and I could never hate an allium for long. And, in […]