This week’s CSA proved a bonanza of greens. One find I unearthed I have not used in a while mainly because its not a common herb in my local markets. So there was an excited “woohoo” elicited from me upon its discovery. The plant in question is sorrel, and if you are not familiar...
I was recently consumed with curiosity about lye used in cooking and found that its use is critical to the pretzels we know and love. One thing led to another, and so I decided to explore the twisted world of pretzels: Why the knots? Why use lye? Why desiccated bread? What are they? Pretztels can...
Growing up, a favorite treat for me was the beef jerky my parents made. I loved that delicious, salty snack, but after I moved away I questioned my memory of those meaty treats. My subsequent encounters, left me cold, they were not so much dried as desiccated, tough as nails, so stringy that I...
I was tempted to title this post “Spaghetti Western” because of the strange connection that agretti has to the American west. You see agretti could be considered an edible tumbleweed. It’s more famous relative can been seen in its meandering migration across the western plains. Agretti’s botanical name is Salsola soda, and this familial naming...
We spent the past few weekends in a food and wine haze, and while I loved every minute of it, but am ready to admit you can have too much of a good thing. Recently, we attended a wine tasting at Quivira Vineyards in Sonoma, County, sampling plenty of delicious food paired with the...
Spring is here, I see color wherever I look, especially at the Farmers Market – not the color coordinated palettes of winter – the lush jewel toned browns, greens, and golds, but the clashing vibrant fireworks of blues, reds, pinks, and greens – mostly greens that harold in the new season. One of my...
Smoking foods adds tastes and aroma to foods that to quote Emerile, “takes it up a notch”. I’ll confess – I love just about anything smoked, and as I live in an apartment, smoking foods is sometimes the closest I can get to my version of a barbecue. Discovering foods to smoke, and even...
Hawaii, the United States’ backyard paradise, is one of those places that is almost impossible to define in terms of its cuisine and culture. The indigenous people were devastated by disease and fighting when Captain Cook settled on the islands. Since then, people from China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, the Philippines and points beyond arrived...
If there was one word that guarantees an animated discussion for food lovers here in the good ole’ United States, that word is “barbecue (BBQ)”. Everyone has an opinion – charcoal or gas, what kind of briquets, how to start the fire, the kind of wood to use, and we haven’t even gotten to...
As a child, I had an overwhelming curiosity about the (H)mong*. For the life of me, I could not figure out why of all the places in the world, they picked Minnesota. Frankly, I was a bit dumbfounded by this choice. Nothing against Minnesota. I still am a Minnesota girl at heart, but growing...
