September 2015

I am sure this salad sets the record for most ingredients — steak, mushrooms, goat cheese, hard boiled eggs, pecans, bacon, sage, cilantro, chives, basil, lavender, honey, croutons and many others. But Craig Cyr’s point was to show off the great local products from Saturday morning’s farmer’s market. It worked….

With a name like Chef LaLa and a cookbook called Latin Lover Lite, Laura Diaz-Brown highlights her funky — and easily marketable — side. But after a Cinco de Mayo cooking demonstration, I found more to admire about the woman. Chef LaLa cooked and spoke at an Inside Columbia Magazine…

I sometimes do my grocery shopping at 1am. I don’t know why, maybe I like having the whole store to myself (with the exception of the guy on the zamboni floor polisher thing). Everything is pristine, ordered, in their rows. Granted, I’ve noticed a higher percentage of older/bruised fruit and…

It’s a fine skill to be able to plan a menu and execute it well. Lately, though, I’ve been taking pride in my new ability to cook on the fly, especially when it means making something out of nothing, as it did with this galette. For at least two weeks,…

Quinoa, in case you’re unfamiliar, is that trendy new grain that South Americans have been eating for thousands of years. I had it for the first time a few months ago. It’s is a little bitter on its own so I like it with lots of other flavors. For whatever…

So I found out my professor for Intro to Food Science and Nutrition now posts our lectures to iTunes U.  There goes all my incentive to go class. I could  sit at home with a sandwich, or I could sit next to 400 smelly freshman. OK they don’t all smell,…

Call this my California comeback meal. I cooked very differently in Argentina. I used almost exclusively Argentine products, except some spices I brought with me. I was cooking meals for me and only me, so I was less adventurous, plus my kitchen was less stocked. (Ask Marissa, who said she’d…

This is why my friends and I don’t go out to eat often. It’s because we make dinners like this. And we can make four of them for the price a restaurant might charge for one. Of course, if my kitchen were a restaurant, last night’s special might have read…

Just give me a beet And I’ll bring the heat After an hour, it gets real sweet Fennel’s a treat And blue cheese I’ll eat Sure, call me elite But this dish is replete It’s one I’ll repeat Next time with penne, I’ll call it complete Maybe it’s because they’re…

“Sweetness. Saltiness. Sourness. Bitterness. Every delicious bite you’ve ever tasted has been a result of these four tastes coming together on your taste buds. We taste them as individual notes, and in concert.” The Flavor Bible This particular meal is a symphony. Not only in flavors, but in textures and…