In the Victorian Christmas carol "In the Bleak Midwinter," which was based on a poem by Christina Rossetti, there is a line: "Snow had fallen, snow on snow/Snow on snow[.]" That line seems particularly apt right now as Chicago braces itself for not one but two possible winter storms over the next 48 hours. What to eat when you are facing the ...
Pumpkin Apple Bread with Garam Masala
October means two things to me: pumpkin and apple. Luckily, those ingredients actually go together! Like in this Pumpkin Apple Bread. You use canned pumpkin in the batter -- although have you seen those articles that say that canned pumpkin is really squash? The horror! -- and then fold in chunks of delicious, diced apple right before baking. I ...
Shortcake with Grilled Peaches & Rosemary
I have had such a busy summer that I have barely had time to do the things I love best: shop at the farmers market, pick my own fruits and vegetables at a pick-your-own farm, and cook for friends and family. This weekend, however, we found ourselves with a blissfully unscheduled Sunday. On the spur of the moment, I invited some friends to join ...
Learn More About GMOs
Today's post is sponsored by GMO Answers via MomTrends. As always, all opinions expressed herein are entirely my own. These days, talking about agriculture can lead to some pretty tense conversations. There are many heated issues around food production including organic versus conventional farming, how antibiotics should be used, and ...
Soy Sesame Asparagus Rice Bowl
Thanks to Riveridge Produce for sponsoring today's post. Look for Michigan-grown Riveridge asparagus in stores this spring! It's finally asparagus season! Are you as happy as I am? Yes, I know that today you can buy asparagus all year round. In a world where asparagus are always available, does asparagus season have any meaning? Well, for ...
Grilled Purple Sweet Potatoes
Oh, purple. The color of royalty. The color of luxury. Ever since the world lost Prince a few weeks ago, we've been seeing purple everywhere. But purple has always been my color of choice. In fact, it's my favorite color. But until recently, I have not expressed my love of purple through food. There are simply not that many purple foods to be ...
Meme’s Pickled Cucumbers
I write a lot about my Jewish heritage and how it has shaped me as a cook, but I have another set of culinary influences on my mother's side of the family and those influences are Swedish. I had one Jewish grandmother and one Swedish grandmother. So I get to claim both culinary traditions. My Swedish half's time to shine is Christmas, which ...
Top 10 Things I Saw at the Home and Housewares Show, Part II
As I explained in Part I of my recap, this past weekend was the International Home and Housewares Show, the housewares industry's enormous annual trade show with over 2100 exhibitors from 40 countries. I attended as press and as part of the team behind the lifestyle website Inspired Home. I have not attended many trade shows in my life -- ...
Chocolate Orange Yogurt Truffles
Chocolate orange truffles made with Divine Chocolate dark chocolate and Stonyfield yogurt instead of cream? These may be decadent but I feel no guilt whatsoever! Valentine's Day is right around the corner, but you still have time to make your beloved a homemade gift. And what could be more romantic than chocolate? But what if your ...
January 2016 Chicago Food Swap Recap
Between my two-week vacation and my early January move, I was not prepared for the first Chicago Food Swap event of 2016. In fact, I had been quite lax about promoting the swap and, as a result, it looked like we were going to have quite a low turnout. But then, a whole bunch of last-minute registrations came in, and a few people even showed ...
Meyer Lemon Recipe Round-Up
It's specialty citrus season! Exotic varieties of citrus are one of the few culinary highlights in the otherwise bleak Chicago winter. Like an antidote to the winter doldrums, a new kind of citrus fruit arrives in the stores every week during the winter months. Pomelos, tangelos, blood oranges, Key limes and Meyer lemons are just some of the ...
A Visit to Lima’s Surquillo Market
My family just returned from a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Peru. We visited Machu Picchu and other Inca ruins, the Andean city of Cusco and Peru's capital, Lima. We were astonished by the complex buildings of the Incas, touched by the warmth of the Peruvian people and delighted by the delicious food we ate. It was one of the best trips of my ...
Grilled Boneless Leg of Lamb
For the last night of Hanukkah this year, we celebrated with a special family dinner. I made potato latkes, of course, and the main course was a delicious, marinated leg of lamb. If you are looking for an impressive entrée for your upcoming holiday feast, you could not do much better than a boneless leg of lamb. Because it has been so ...
Cookie Recipe Round-Up for National Cookie Day
Friday is National Cookie Day! And why not? It's the time of year when everyone is pulling out their favorite cookie recipes, creaming sugar and butter, chilling dough, cutting out shapes, piping icing, drizzling chocolate and filling tins. Even people who rarely bake have a favorite cookie without which their holidays would not be complete. If ...
Chocolate Bar Skillet Cookie
Let me take a break from our regularly scheduled recipe post to let you all know that my first cookbook, Food Swap, is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Yes, it won't actually be released until May, which seems like ages from now, but will be here before we know it! The book is partly a guide for anyone interested in joining the national ...
Chocolate Bark with Dried Apricots, Golden Raisins and Pumpkin Seeds
Today's recipe post is sponsored by Sun-Maid in conjunction with my work as part of Kitchen-PLAY's #TeamFreshSummit. As always, all opinions are entirely my own. While at PMA Fresh Summit in Atlanta, I had the opportunity to visit the Sun-Maid booth and learn more about this 100-year-old, farmer-owned cooperative. Is there a more iconic ...
The PMA Fresh Summit in Atlanta
Today's post is sponsored by PMA Fresh Summit, HBF International, Sun-Maid and Valley Fig & Outrageously Fresh! Join me tonight (10/20) at 8 pm CDT for a Twitter party to introduce the 2015 Fresh Summit sponsors and the #TeamFreshSummit bloggers. Grab your laptop for a fast-paced hour with these delicious brands and learn how they are ...
How to Make Baba Ganoush
It is hard to be an eggplant lover. We are a rare breed of individual characterized by an especially sophisticated palate. My mother and my daughter both share my love for this purple, bulbous vegetable but my husband won't touch the stuff. And JR. Well, did anyone think JR would eat eggplant? The year I lived in Paris, I bought the same lunch ...
Gift Ideas for Cooks from Sur La Table
Being a food blogger has afforded me some pretty amazing opportunities, like the chance to meet chefs and authors I admire, attend a two-day conference on olive oil and take a cooking class on mangoes with my kids. But for a serious cook, few experiences are as cool as the chance to visit the Corporate Test Kitchen of Sur La Table and hear about ...
Rosh Hashanah Recipes: Kreplach
If you think the matzo ball is the ultimate Jewish soup dumpling, let me quickly disabuse you of that notion. As much as I love a fluffy matzo ball, my heart truly belongs to kreplach, the meat-filled pasta triangle known affectionately as Jewish tortellini and served during the High Holidays. Never heard of kreplach? You are not alone. While ...
Scenes from the Chicago Food + Wine Festival
The inaugural Chicago Food + Wine Festival took over Lincoln Park this weekend and judging by the enthusiasm of the crowd, Chicago was clearly hungry - pun very much intended - for an event of this kind. Perhaps because this was the first year, the crowds were not overwhelming. There were very few lines, except for highly-sought-after events like ...
August 2015 Chicago Food Swap Recap
The Chicago Food Swap had its August event on a perfect summer Saturday. A large group of returning swappers and some new faces joined together to trade and swap a diverse array of homemade and homegrown treats from backyard herbs and vegetables to South Asian curry and rice dishes to New York’s iconic black-and-white cookies. The offerings were so ...
Tropical Smoothie Bowl with Silk Dairy-Free Yogurt
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SilkDairyFree #CollectiveBias Today, I am resetting your expectations about what breakfast can be with a quick and easy recipe that is packed with nutrition but tastes like a trip to a tropical island. This tropical smoothie bowl, which ...
A Visit to Stockholm’s Östermalms Saluhall
Whenever I travel, one of my favorite things to do is visit food markets. From Seattle's Pike Place Market to Montreal's Marché Jean-Talon, I have visited some amazing temples to gastronomy. So naturally, when my family visited Sweden, and its capital Stockholm, Östermalms Saluhall, the city's famous food hall, was the site I most wanted to see. A ...
How to Make Corn Broth
It is so corn season around here. Corn is one of my absolute favorite vegetables to buy at the farmers' market. Why? First, freshly picked corn is worlds better than grocery store corn. The sweetness and crunch of local corn-on-the-cob picked the same day, or at most a day before, is incomparable. I am a corn snob, plain and simple, and I won't ...