Peter Glatz

It was the last night of a jam band music festival in Wisconsin, 250 miles northwest of Chicago. I had accepted an invitation to be a guest on my friend Bud’s hippie bus before remembering that my wedding anniversary was that Sunday. As a compromise, I suggested to my wife that she take Amtrak to […]

The holiday season is upon us, and for the curious cooks and bakers in our lives, there’s no better gift than a new cookbook to inspire their culinary adventures. This fall saw the release of several wonderful cookbooks that are sure to spark creativity. These are my top picks for the best new cookbooks for […]

Once upon a time, before my hair turned gray, my teenage children “kidnapped” me for my birthday and drove me up to Chicago for a Cubs game, followed by dinner at a Colombian restaurant. Our overly aggressive server, who reeked of cannabis, recommended the “combination” platter. My daughter, who was a vegetarian, requested a meatless […]

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love your attractive yellow and green striped skin. I love your light orange flesh and mild, sweet, almost nutty flavor. I love your compact size. I love that you are easy to slice through and your tender edible skin doesn’t require peeling. You cook […]

Over my five-year career as a chef, I’ve made thousands of ravioli. I was once the pasta maker at Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis and Pastaria in Nashville. A raviolo (the singular of ravioli) is a type of dumpling with a filling sealed between two thin layers of pasta dough. At both restaurants, I made […]

I am the designated pickler and fermenter at my current restaurant job. Because we are a farm-to-table restaurant with a full-time gardener, our menu changes weekly, inspired by what’s coming out of our kitchen garden. This summer’s weather has been extremely kind to our garden, and our tomatoes are beautiful and prolific. With such abundance, […]

I will remember the summer of 2024 as my Summer of the Goat. I’ve been boondocking in my converted school bus beside a goat barn and working at Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery’s farm-to-table restaurant Caprae in Champaign. This job has been like a Willy Wonka golden ticket for a cheese lover. Our chèvre (which […]

I started cooking at an early age and one of my first cookbooks was the Bantam paperback edition of Craig Claiborne’s An Herb and Spice Cookbook (which sold for only 95 cents in 1965). Claiborne was the food editor of the New York Times and is credited, along with Julia Child, with making ethnic cuisines […]

After three months of nurturing and coaxing the vegetable garden in my tiny backyard, I’m finally rewarded by a bounty of produce. Throughout the summer, I’ve been snipping and rooting basil sprigs. Now the progeny of my original basil plant has grown into a lush and verdant patch of a dozen plants. The days are […]

I’ve been spending my summer as a chef at Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery in Champaign. I consider myself to be in pretty good shape, but by the end of my workweek, my 71-year-old butt is dragging! When I drive back home to Springfield after my last shift, I count on my two days off […]

The origin story of the potato goes back 7,000-10,000 years to the Andes mountain region of southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. Spanish conquistadors encountered potatoes in Peru in 1536 and brought them back to Europe. Leave it to the gastronomic creativity of the French to transform this humble tuber into a decadent and delicious dish […]

I’m back on my bus this summer, living on a farm in rural Champaign and working at Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery. Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery is about 5 miles northeast of the campus of the University of Illinois, my alma mater. My bus is parked next to a goat barn surrounded by a […]