My three months in Buenos Aires are up, sadly. I loved getting to know the city by walking everywhere and sitting in parks peoplewatching. The weekends were my favorite because everyone spent the day outside. I would walk to Puerto Madero’s Costanera Sur, where I’d be surrounded by local people…

September 14th, 2009 — 11:00am I believe that if you want to know a city, you have to embrace the streets. In Buenos Aires, I walk between three and 12 miles each day, venturing to different corners of the city and using new routes all the time. And if Anthony…

February 20th, 2009 — 2:02pm 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…

May 29th, 2010 — 8:06pm 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…

Back in February, Michael, my friend Gwen and I competed in the university Iron Chef competition, where we had a few days to plan a two course menu involving various rices. We all love Indian food so that’s the route we went. Then we had one hour and two burners…

Hey everyone, time to get all jealous. My mom works at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago as a rep for furniture and home decor vendors (she’s the person who gets all the cool stuff you like in Crate and Barrel from the manufacturers to the store), and because of her…

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…