Peter Glatz

Though I don’t have any Slavic or Orthodox Christian roots, my family has been making a rich cheese-based dessert called paskha every Easter for decades. Paskha is a traditional Eastern Orthodox dish resembling a crustless cheesecake. It is served after the “breaking of the fast” at the end of Lent. We first read about paskha […]

Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is check the weather app on my phone, and then I scan my emails. I had to do a double-take recently when I opened an email newsletter from Anupy Singla, one of my favorite cookbook authors. Her post began: “This week, I launched my […]

The late Roger Ebert was an unlikely enthusiast of the electric rice cooker. A Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times (and Urbana native), Ebert had a true passion for food and cooking. My wife’s cousin, Carolyn, who knew Ebert well, shares fond memories of how he loved going to restaurants with a big […]

Polenta, a type of cornmeal porridge or mush, is a humble peasant dish from northern Italy that predates the Roman Empire. Before Christopher Columbus introduced corn from the Americas to Europe, polenta was made from ground barley, fava beans, spelt, rye or buckwheat. Modern-day polenta is typically made from medium to coarsely ground yellow flint […]

I’ve become fascinated with the backstories behind the recipes I’ve made and the ingredients I’ve worked with. I love to collect and browse old cookbooks, especially those from the 1800s. The great cooks of yesteryear were the ones who knew how to coax optimal flavors from simple ingredients, and in many cases, they had better […]

There’s nothing more comforting than walking into a house and being greeted by the aroma of freshly baked bread wafting from the kitchen. It’s a smell that can bring you a sense of happiness and contentment. Some real estate brokers even contend that the comforting aroma can increase your chances of selling your house. I […]

The holidays are a time for family and friends to gather and enjoy delicious food. Unfortunately, far too often, over-ambitious baking and meal preparation turn this joyous time into a stressful kitchen marathon. One year I decided to make a classic pâté en croûte, a terrine of ground pork and duck encased in a pastry […]

Five years ago, I attended a book-signing for the highly acclaimed Noma Guide to Fermentation. Noma is a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Copenhagen, considered by many to be one of the world’s best. In his presentation prior to the book signing, Noma’s chef, Rene Redzepi, criticized the restaurant’s two previous cookbooks: Noma: Time and Place in […]

I grew up in Arlington Heights, a suburb about 30 miles from Chicago. Depending on traffic, driving downtown could take up to an hour, so our trips into the city were infrequent and usually reserved for special occasions. Once a year for my birthday, my father would take me to one of Chicago’s museums or […]

It was 1984. We had just bought our first house, an old farmhouse built in the late 1800s. The kitchen was outdated and needed renovation. There wasn’t a range hood over the stove, and over the years, the ceiling and cabinets had acquired a dingy brownish-grey patina from the buildup of decades of smoke and […]