Kim O’Donnel

It’s been a rough autumn for the food chain. First it was the nationwide supermarket spinach scare, then (albeit to a lesser degree) it was lettuce and carrot juice. Next came the FDA’s announced plans to approve the sale of meat and milk from cloned livestock. Rounding things out was the release of two major […]

Autumn is tricky; although beautiful (golden harvest colors, crimson leaves), delicious (apples, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes), and eventful (Halloween, Thanksgiving), it’s our cue to bundle up and hunker down. Every year at this time I go through a major mood adjustment, ever searching for ways to help brace myself for the darkest parts of the […]

For a long time, the words “Food is everything” donned my refrigerator, torn from the pages of a magazine lost and forgotten. Although I remember smiling in acknowledgment, I doubt that I gave much thought to “everything.” Is everything every thing? And do we all agree on everything? We might all agree that food is […]

By the time you read this column, will the Escherichia coli spinach mystery involving 23 states be solved? Who knows? Regardless of the spinachy state of America, life must go on, and we gotta keep eating our vegetables. Consider the spinach hiatus an opportunity; after all, it’s not the only big green name in town. […]

I’ve got a new baby in the house. Swaddled in plastic, she arrived in need of a good scrub. Although she doesn’t cry, gurgle, or spit up, she does keep me up at night, my mind racing over all the meals we’ll cook together. Currently I’m feeding her a diet of oil and Chinese chives […]

Of all the recipes from my hundreds of cookbooks and scrap-paper mishmash, there’s only one that predates my cooking career and has remained a part of my life. It was 1993. After six months working as a reporter in South Africa, I was living with my mother, struggling with midtwenties angst about what next to […]

Ruby is my special pal who lives in Oak Park, Ill. She lives with her kid brother, August, and her parents, Miguel and Nancy, who have been in my life for the past 17 years. Rubes is more like a de facto niece; I remember her big eyes in the bassinet. Now 10 years old, […]

Hailstorms recently pounded northern Italy, and, as a result, much of the country’s basil crop was obliterated, making the preparation of pesto, the beloved summer herb purée, impossible. The area close to Genoa, long considered basil’s mecca, was particularly affected, an act of Mother Nature that inevitably will throw pesto off restaurant menus in that […]

Deciding to be a vegan is like signing up for the armed forces. You’ve enlisted for service mysterious and unknown to many, your life will be regimented (and at times arduous), and dessert is either nonexistent or absolutely wretched. Ever try one of those well-meaning dairy and egg-free cookies or cakes made with date paste, […]

Amid the bounty of late-summer vegetables, there’s one that tends to get the short shrift, and her name is okra. In India she’s quite the lady’s finger, in parts of West Africa she’s known as ngombo (which is how gumbo got its name) and in the Middle East she’s got the beautiful melodic name of […]

Rare is the opportunity to truly experience an ingredient and eat it several different ways in one sitting. Not only is it challenging to pull off for the cook, it can also be overwhelming for the eater. But it’s being done: In the past few months, I’ve heard about chefs playing with asparagus five different […]

In another life, my name was Lulu. I worked as a waitress in a stainless-steel diner in Philadelphia, manning a 20-seat counter that required the nerves of an air traffic controller and the wit of a standup comic. Weekend brunch was the busiest shift, with customers jamming the aisles and demanding coffee faster than you […]