Food & Drink

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 […]

Eggs have been a symbol of spring for centuries, long before the advent of Christianity and our modern hunts for Easter eggs. The ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians all had beliefs relating to eggs and the creation of the universe, that the earth itself was born out of an egg. Cultures around the world decorate […]

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 […]

St. Patrick's Day is almost upon us and what better way to celebrate than with boozy, Irish-inspired desserts? This decadent chocolate Bundt cake gets an extra layer of complexity with the inclusion of rich stout beer. While Guinness is possibly the most famous stout in the world, there’s a huge variety available from Murphy’s Stout, […]

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 […]

“I’m going to run into the grocery and pick up some potatoes for dinner – it’ll be quick, I promise. I’m just getting one thing.” I made these assurances with the best of intentions but as I briskly walked through the produce section a sign caught my eye. Button mushrooms were on sale for 99 […]

Show yourself some love this Valentine’s Day with beets. These deeply pigmented vegetables are a glorious addition to winter menus, providing visual pop, sweet earthy flavor and loads of nutrition. Rich in iron, manganese, potassium, vitamins and B6, beets also are a source of plant-based nitrates, which research has suggested can increase blood flow and […]

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 […]

Countless cooks caught the sourdough baking bug in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown. Yeast was scarce and with time on their hands, modern bakers discovered the joys of this ancient process. I was fortunate to grow up with artisanal sourdough baking, but as a Midwestern kid in the 1990s it was anything but […]

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 […]