September 2015

Gand is the Executive Pastry Chef/Owner of TRU and host of Sweet Dreams on Food Network One day a few months back my mom was at the library in our hometown north of Chicago and found out Gale Gand, pastry chef extraordinaire, was talking there.  I’ve always wanted big things…

Dessert recipes usually aren’t as forgiving as savory dishes, but I still can’t ever seem to follow the rules. I had a big bag of cornmeal and frozen cranberries — the main ingredients — but didn’t want to go to the store for anything else. I swapped plain yogurt for…

Just after the James Beard Award semifinalists were announced, I decided it was time to learn more about Beard himself. I made a special trip to the university library to check out one of his books. I’ll add that in seven semesters at Missouri I never needed a library book…

I am emphatically not a fan of shopping for clothes. But grocery shopping? Well, it would be in a top 10 list of my all-time favorite activities. I love seeing all the food in one place. When I’m standing there, I can visualize any meal. I look at the shelves…

I read some very unfortunate news today on Addie Broyles’ Relish Austin blog. Conde Nast is planning to stop publishing Gourmet Magazine. I feel genuinely sad. After a trip to Europe when I was 4 years old, I told my parents I wanted to be a chef. They outfitted me…

“This book will be your companion in the kitchen whenever you wish to create deliciousness.” — The Flavor Bible Wednesday is the one year anniversary of the publication of The Flavor Bible. James Beard Award-winning authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg asked us to mention something here, and I am…

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant is a quality compilation of accounts on cooking and dining alone. I got it during the going-out-of-business sale at The Cooks Library. I like short nonfiction pieces, and I knew with graduation ahead of me I’d probably be eating alone more often. The…

Friday is Norooz — the Persian New Year — and all through elementary and high school, I had this holiday off. This was because I grew up in Beverly Hills. People outside Los Angeles have a certain image of Beverly Hills. More often than not, they envision a city of…

Someone told me that his mom once used five successive exclamation points in a note saying she was making frittata for dinner. At that point I had never tried frittata, but I knew I must if it roused that much excitement in someone. Now I love to make it, and…

At first mention, the idea of a sauceless, cheeseless pizza doesn’t seem too enticing, so if it makes you feel better, you can call these flatbreads or something else. I’m happy thinking of them as pizzas where the focus is all dough and toppings. (In case you’re new here, I…