As some of you know, I am in the midst of writing my first cookbook. The manuscript of the book, which will be about food swapping, is due in seven months. That sounds like a long time yet I have a lot to do in those seven months: research, writing, and, most important, creating and testing recipes. As a result, I have been posting here less than ...
What to Do with Fresh Figs
Dip them in chocolate ganache, of course! Why? What do you do with fresh figs? It is definitely fig season and if you only know figs from the dried kind -- or even worse, Newtons -- you are in for a treat. Fresh figs are sweet, juicy and altogether luscious. Lending themselves to both sweet and savory preparations, fresh figs are the fruit you ...
What to Do with Hatch Chiles
"Is it salsa time," asked the man in the produce section, gesturing toward my bulging bag of green Hatch chiles. "You know you can freeze them," I replied. "Really?" "Sure. You roast them, peel them and then freeze them in bags. That way you have them all year long." "Huh," said the man thinking this over. "Good to know." That exchange happened ...
Costa Rica with Kids
My family just returned from an amazing week in Costa Rica. We stayed on the Papagayo Peninsula in the province of Guanacaste, which is located in northwestern corner of the country. Costa Rica was the tropical paradise we had hoped it would be. The Pacific ocean beaches were stunning with fine sands, blue water and gentle surf. The landscape ...
Two Tropical Drink Recipes
After spending one of the afternoons of our tropical, Costa Rican vacation in a wine-tasting class -- albeit a wine-tasting class in a open lobby overlooking the beach -- you might think we were done with improving ourselves. But no! As soon as my sister-in-law and I heard that our resort also offered a Mixology class, we immediately signed up ...
Wine Tasting in Paradise
My family is on vacation in Costa Rica this week with my mother and my brother and his family. I have traveled to some of the great cities of Europe, Hawaii, Mexico and the Caribbean and I can safely say that Costa Rica is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been. And the Costa Rican people that we have met have been, to a person, ...
Can-It-Forward Day August 16
This Saturday August 16, Jarden Home Brands will host the first annual International Can-It-Forward Day with special guest, renowned chef and Bravo’s Top Chef judge, Hugh Acheson! I ate at Chef Acheson's Atlanta restaurant Empire State South last year and it was one of the more memorable meals of my adult life. Being a southern guy, Hugh knows all ...
Cheddar Jalapeño Corn Pudding
My family cannot get enough sweet corn during the summer months. Once the sweet corn appears at the farmers market in late July, you can put me down for a dozen ears a week. Why buy fewer than twelve ears when corn is so inexpensive? I cook all dozen ears at the same time. Once the water is boiling, or the grill is hot, it is no extra work to cook ...
How to Bake with Yeast
Once, a dozen years ago, when I was a young bride living in a hip Chicago neighborhood -- I wasn't always west of the Loop, you know -- I tried to make challah from scratch for Shabbat dinner. The dough never rose and, when baked, my loaf was so dense that I could have hit my husband over the head with it and knocked him out cold. Scarred by ...
Farmers Market Find: Red Currants
Perhaps you have noticed red currants, glossy and ruby-red, at the farmers market lately. If so, consider yourself lucky. It can be hard to find these members of the Ribes family. Even if you noticed them, I bet you did not buy them. They were expensive, right? And you weren't sure what to do with them. Red currants are shockingly expensive, but I ...
How to Host a Bagel Brunch
This past weekend, I hosted a baby shower for a friend who, like me, is an East Coast transplant to Chicago. Because my friend and her husband are both from New York, we decided to make New York the theme of the shower. The menu? A classic bagel brunch, of course! A bagel brunch is a relaxed and easy party to throw because you purchase most of ...
July Chicago Food Swap Recap
The Chicago Food Swap returned to Wicker Park, and the funky confines of co-working loft Free Range Office, for its July swap. It was a small but lively gathering peopled mostly by returning swappers with a few new faces scattered here and there. Located on the second floor of a converted glove factory, Free Range Office is filled with light and ...
Scenes from the Farmers Market
At least once every year, I like to bring my camera with me on one of my early Saturday morning trips to the Oak Park Farmers Market to capture the abundance. Mid-July is a heady time at the farmers market. The tables are groaning with fruit from the Michigan orchards. Stone fruits of all kinds, from cherries to apricots to peaches and plum, ...
Farmers Market Find: Fava Beans
Some foods really make you work for it. Fava beans definitely fall into that category. Any food that you have to shell not once but twice very much runs the risk of being not worth the effort. Luckily, favas -- which the British call broad beans -- have a distinctive, nutty flavor and a buttery texture that endear them to sophisticated eaters ...
Farmers Market Find: Gooseberries
I freely admit that I am a sucker for the most unusual item at the market or on a menu. Sometimes my instinct to try that new-to-me food can backfire, such as the bitter and grassy corn shoots in my salad at the Zingerman's Roadhouse. (Some things are just not for eating, folks.) But nevertheless, I press on. So it was that I passed by all the ...
A Weekend in Ann Arbor
It had been just over twenty-four hours since we arrived in Ann Arbor and I simply could not eat or drink another thing. Clearly, I had failed as a professional eater. Bon Appétit has a feature called The Big Fat Weekend where one of the editors spends a weekend eating and drinking his or her way through a city and then writes an article filled ...
Grilled Vegetables with Balsamic-Lime Reduction
It's the lazy days of summer and I am feeling lazy too. I barely want to lift a finger, let alone make dinner. Luckily, it is also grilling season. That means that I can enlist my husband to make dinner. Thank heavens. Here is what we ate for dinner the past two nights. Saturday: grilled chicken sausage, grilled vegetables and tabbouleh. ...
Picnic Fare: Garlic & Herb Roast Beef Sandwiches and No-Mayo Potato Salad
JR is on the swim team this summer. That means that, in addition to daily practice after camp, he has weekly meets that start around 5 pm and end, well, end several hours later if we're lucky. Zuzu does the swim team during the school year. Those meets start at 6 am and end, well, end several hours later -- if we're lucky. Our mistake, plainly, was ...
June Chicago Food Swap Recap
For a foodie event, there is hardly a more prestigious location than Sur La Table, the beloved kitchenwares emporium. So when Ali Banks, the resident chef at Chicago's swanky Sur La Table store on Michigan Avenue, reached out to me about hosting a food swap in her kitchen, I was falling over myself to say yes. While Michigan Avenue is inevitably ...
Strawberry Balsamic Basil Ice Cream
It's high strawberry season in the Midwest. Farmers market tables display row upon row of ruby-red berries capped with jolly green stems. At my house, we've already indulged in strawberry shortcake, strawberry rhubarb pie and I've put up nine jars of a strawberry-rhubarb- jalapeño jam. While I am certain that my husband would not have objected to ...
Culinary Tour of Devon Avenue
Does your city have ethnic neighborhoods filled with markets, shops and restaurants where recent and not-so-recent immigrants can recreate a little of their homeland here in the United States? Most cities do. All over America there are Chinatowns, Koreatowns, Greektowns, Little Saigons, Little Odessas and Little Italies. Some of these neighborhoods ...
Mariano’s Makes Summertime Living Easier
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. #MyMarianos #Collective Bias Summertime and the living is easy. Nowhere is that more true than Chicago. Winter is brutal and spring inevitably a wet, cold disappointment, but summer in Chicago is glorious. The days are warm and sunny; every weekend boasts a different ...
Summer Cooking: Spicy Caprese Pasta
I'm hot. You're hot. She's hot. We're hot! Sounds like a bad wedding band, right? As fond as I am of party hits from the 80's, today I am actually just talking about the weather. It went from cold and rainy to sweltering and humid overnight in Chicago. Yesterday was the first day of the year where I had absolutely no interest in eating hot food. ...
Elegant First Course: Cold Pea Soup with Mint
The appearance of shelling peas at the Oak Park Farmers Market on Saturday meant that I could make one of my all-time favorite recipes this weekend. A recipe that is only in play for a few weeks each year: cold pea soup with mint. Luckily, this recipe is also a favorite with my soup-loving husband, so when I put it on the menu for Father's Day, he ...
Sautéed Turnip Greens with Green Garlic
There is a saying in cooking, or maybe gardening, along the lines of: what grows together, goes together. As spring turns into summer, and farmers markets all over the country begin to overflow with fresh, local fruits and vegetables, it can be helpful to keep that axiom in mind. If you are not sure how to use your farmers market, or garden, ...