Food Features

Once a naughty childhood prank, “ding-dong-ditch” has taken on new meaning in the era of social distancing. Normally the game involves ringing someone’s doorbell and trying to get away before they answer, perhaps leaving something vile on the doorstep. Now, instead of little kids leaving toads on the doormat, it’s grown to adults dropping off […]

That old Yiddish adage Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht (which translates to Man plans and God Laughs), keeps running through my head these days. It’s ironic that I decided to retire from dentistry to embark on a new career as a chef exactly one year before COVID-19 started shutting down the restaurants. Presumably the pandemic […]

I can’t say that I’m 100% proud of my behavior during this pandemic. I’ve kept a stiff upper lip and maintained a good attitude. That I am proud of. But I have, on occasion, put my dietary values and philosophies into the closet for a while because I felt that I needed an emotional bump. […]

Frugal and full of comfort, homemade bread bowls are an ideal baking project for a blustery autumn weekend. They can be made in one day but, like many yeasted breads, these bread bowls will have the best flavor if allowed to rise slowly overnight. This recipe makes five softball-sized bowls, but can also be used […]

I spent part of the summer in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula working for a chef who, whenever feasible, cooked with local and foraged ingredients. For example, our riff on Cajun gumbo substituted Lake Superior whitefish for Acadian redfish and foraged baby milkweed pods for okra. For any dish that normally called for rice, we would opt […]

Flu and cold season will soon be upon us, and with the COVID-19 pandemic still in full swing, many are increasingly concerned with their health and well-being. It’s easy to worry over every little sneeze and sniffle, especially if you have kids in school or you yourself have to go out into the world to […]

For months I heard stories about Chef Paul Wang. He’s cooked at Noma in Copenhagen, considered by many to be the best restaurant in the world. He studied Buddhist temple cuisine with Jeong Kwan, a Zen nun and renowned cook who was featured in the Netflix series “Chef’s Table.” He has lived in a different […]

Brown butter is a magical thing. It’s devastatingly simple to make and transforms everything from cookies to chicken to boxed macaroni and cheese. It’s often thought of as a classic French ingredient, and indeed the late Julia Child, who helped to make French cooking accessible to American home cooks, was known for her love of […]

About 12 years ago I started buying sausages and cured meats from Laurence Mate, an amateur charcuterie maker from Champaign. He had found a way around government regulations by selling memberships to a “buyers club” which he called This Little Piggy. The membership fee was one penny and members could obtain his homemade charcuterie by […]

Autumn is upon us. After a somewhat frazzled summer I’ve relished walking out into the deliciously crisp air each morning. My hysterical mess of a garden is often framed by a soft blanket of fog, punctuated with bright pumpkins, shriveled cucumber vines and dried up bean plants. A better gardener would have pulled most of […]