Last week, Macy's Culinary Council, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, invited me to attend a demo by celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson at the State Street Macy's store. Everyone knows Marcus Samuelsson from his many television appearances and, of course, from his Harlem restaurant Red Rooster. I have long been a fan of his and ...
Roasted Garlic Hummus for the Chicago Food Swap
Last Saturday was the second anniversary Chicago Food Swap. It's amazing how this community has grown in such a short time. From the dozen or so swappers at that first event in December 2011, the Chicago Food Swap has grown to a community of several hundred people with events that regularly draw eighty or ninety. Each swap, it seems, is a mix of ...
Low-Fat Holiday Treat: Chocolate Mint Meringues
This is a recipe and post from a few years back, but the story is so classically me and the cookies are so tasty and seasonal, I just had to bring it up from the archives. Enjoy! It all started with the Meyer lemons. I was doing my just-buy-the-necessities-because-we-are-leaving-town shopping trip last week when a display of vibrant yellow ...
Latkes for Hanukkah Dinner
Yes, this year Thanksgiving falls during Hanukkah. Yes, everyone is talking about the culinary mash-up of these two holidays. I even wrote a freelance article for the local weekly paper about how to merge Thanksgiving and Hanukkah food traditions. (To sum up: I recommend going with sweet potato latkes and challah stuffing.) But Hanukkah lasts for ...
Enjoy Jonagold Apples from Michigan
Today's post is sponsored by Riveridge Produce. Look for Riverridge Gala, Honeycrisp and Jonagold apples from Michigan for your holiday table. Whether you want to make an amazing apple pie, a refreshing salad accented with crunchy apples, or a sweet-and-spicy squash and apple soup, such as the one pictured here, Riveridge apples will make your all ...
Maple Pecan Cherry Granola
Eating breakfast is a struggle for me. While I love traditional breakfast foods like eggs and pancakes, those are more of a weekend breakfast treat. Weekdays mornings are too rushed for that kind of cooking. Sadly, most quick breakfast foods -- cereal, fruit and the like -- don't appeal to me. And I hate eating something just for the sake of ...
Savory Bread Pudding
I can't stop making savory bread puddings for dinner. Part of the problem is that I have a lot of stale bread to use up. I love nothing more than to eat bread and cheese for lunch, so every few days I buy some fancy cheese and a baguette. The baguette inevitably goes stale before I can finish it. If that bread were going to waste, I would be upset, ...
From the Archives: Five-Spice Pumpkin Apple Cake
Have I ever mentioned that I am a sucker for pumpkin-flavored baked goods? The pumpkin pie is definitely my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner. But pumpkin-flavored treats are more versatile than we give them credit for: they work well not just for dessert but also as breakfast or brunch fare. I love how pumpkin adds sweetness but also earthiness ...
Cheddar Cauliflower Gratin
Fall is cauliflower season and I could not be more excited. Although broccoli is just about my least favorite vegetable, I adore its cruciferous cousins, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. Cauliflower has all the healthy, cancer-fighting nutrients that you would expect from a member of the Brassica family and a mild, nutty taste that appeals to ...
Poblano Peppers Stuffed with Rice and Black Beans
I get very excited when I see poblano peppers for sale at the Oak Park Farmers Market. You may be familiar with poblano peppers from the Mexican restaurant favorite chiles rellenos, in which poblano peppers are stuffed with cheese, battered and then deep-fried. Usually topped with a spicy red sauce, chiles rellenos is a delicious, if guilt-inducing ...
How to Make the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies (It’s the Chocolate, Stupid)
I recently visited The Chopping Block, Chicago's premier recreational cooking school, to scout the location for the November 10 Chicago Food Swap. Next to the cooking school's beautiful demonstration kitchens is a small retail shop that sells high-end cookware, hard-to-find ingredients and select cookbooks. So naturally I picked up a few odds and ...
What To Do with Fresh Figs
Have you noticed fresh figs for sale at your grocery store lately? While dried figs are available all year long, fresh figs are truly a seasonal delight -- available only for a few months in the late summer and fall. While these beauties are here, I have been snapping them up and adding them to salads, flatbreads and cheese plates. I even tried my ...
Tips from a Cooking Class at Williams-Sonoma
Do you love Williams-Sonoma as much as I do? I walk into that store and instantly start adding things to my mental wish list. A new stand mixer, a shiny saute pan, maybe some serving dishes, a cookbook or two -- I want it all! One of the best things about Williams-Sonoma is that it takes the home cook seriously. Whether you are just starting out in ...
Stoplight Farro Salad
My family recently returned from a wonderful trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have many stories of all the delicious New Mexican cuisine we ate -- a cuisine that is characterized by the question: "green or red," referring to the kind of chiles you want on your dish, naturally. But this story is about farro, which is not a New Mexican ingredient. One ...
Merguez with Yogurt Harissa Sauce
I have been cooking so much Middle Eastern food lately because of my obsession with the cookbook Jerusalem -- a obsession that half of American seems to share, by the way, according to . But long before I knew my way around baharat and tabbouleh, I was a big fan of North African cuisine - a region that is just down the road from the Middle East and ...
Easiest Ever Fruit Crisp
Think you don't have time to make a delicious, old-fashioned dessert for your family tonight? Well, I think that you do. Forget about making an elaborate dough that needs to be chilled and rolled out. Forget about softening butter and getting out your stand mixer. The easiest dessert to make, by far, is a crisp: sliced, sweetened fruit dumped into ...
Great Summer Salad Ideas from Jerusalem
It's July and that means it is time for another Tasting Jerusalem topic. Created by two food writers, Beth from the blog OMG! Yummy and Sarene Wallace from 805 Living magazine, Tasting Jerusalem is a community dedicated to exploring the cuisine of the Middle East using the cookbook Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi as a guide. Each ...
Strawberry-Mint Lemonade
Zuzu heads off for two weeks of overnight camp tomorrow. This is her second year going and she is so excited to see her camp friends again and participate in all the fun, outdoor activities. But she is also a little sad about leaving her friends back at home. Not sad about leaving us, mind you! Sad about leaving her friends. One thing I have ...
Restaurant Review: GT Fish & Oyster
A restaurant with the words "fish" and "oyster" in its name is not the kind of place that I would normally drag my non-seafood-eating husband. But when I am not the one choosing the restaurant, anything can happen. Last week, various members of my extended family came to Chicago to celebrate my first-cousin-once-removed graduation from ...
Preserved Lemons for Tasting Jerusalem
It's June and that means it is time for a new Tasting Jerusalem challenge! Created by two food writers, Beth from the blog OMG! Yummy and Sarene Wallace from 805 Living magazine, Tasting Jerusalem is a community dedicated to exploring the cuisine of the Middle East using the cookbook Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi as a guide. Each ...
Coffee House Strawberry Scones
The coffee house in my town makes the best scones I have ever tasted. I am never one to waste calories on inferior pastry. For example, I make regular trips to Starbucks for a Chai Tea Latte, but I haven't eaten one of their baked goods in years. But the scones at Blue Max Coffee are worth the indulgence. Huge, flaky and studded with fruit, these ...
Lemon Orzo Salad with Asparagus
My mom returned from Paris a few weeks ago and reported that all the markets, and all the restaurant menus, were full of asparagus. The French get so excited about asparagus season because they don't expect to see asparagus all year round. In France, you get asparagus in the spring and once they're gone, they're gone until next year. Au ...
Scenes from the Oak Park Farmers Market
The Oak Park Farmers' Market has been open since May 18, but, as always, the market started slow. The first few weeks offered little locally grown produce beyond lettuce, asparagus and rhubarb. Don't get me wrong: I can do a lot with asparagus and rhubarb. Like grilled asparagus, asparagus pesto, rhubarb jam, and rhubarb-ginger buckle, just to name ...
Healthy Snacking: Banana Yogurt Muffins
Yesterday I was working on an article about healthy snacks for the back-to-school issue of a local parenting publication. It's odd to be writing about back-to-school when my kids still have two more weeks to go in this school year, but that is how editorial calendars work. The article was a natural fit for me: I am committed to finding healthy, ...
Classic Strawberry Shortcake
This past weekend was Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer. It was a busier-than-usual weekend at my house. Saturday, my husband took our daughter to a NHL playoff game, which the Blackhawks won thankfully. My husband and I celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary on Sunday with a dinner out -- a review of that meal coming later ...