Food & Drink

For the past six months one of my jobs at the restaurant has been making pasta from scratch using freshly milled flour from heritage grain, and the taste is really superior. But unfortunately, many of our guests can’t tolerate gluten so I always make gluten-free alternatives using rice flour and chickpea flour. I’ve worked with […]

Humans have likely been making stews for as long as they’ve had the ability to harness fire. By definition “to stew” simply means to cook something slowly in liquid. While similar to another culinary technique called braising, the difference lies in the amount of liquid used. In a braise, just enough liquid is added to […]

The restaurant I’ve been working at serves over 200 guests a day and we go through a lot of vegetables. When the produce orders come in, our prep cook, Alberto, trims off the parts that won’t be used and transfers them into plastic boxes to be put on the shelves of the walk-in cooler. The […]

n the 150 years since the first waffle iron was patented, waffles have become a mainstay on American breakfast tables. Originally introduced to this country in the late 1600s by Dutch colonists, the very first waffle irons were two hinged plates at the end of long handles called reins that facilitated cooking over an open […]

In early 2020, Nick Kokanas saw the coronavirus catastrophe coming way before the rest of us did. Kokonas is the founder of Tock, an online reservation platform utilized by many high-end restaurants around the world. While looking at Tock data coming in from his 50 restaurant clients in Hong Kong, “we saw reservations go near […]

September is prime season at farmers markets across the Midwest. School may be back in session and the leaves beginning to show a slight hint of ochre, but for farmers and gardeners this is the time when the bulk of summer produce is at its peak. While it’s true that sweet corn and peaches are […]

I know quite a bit about the cuisines of Western Europe, the Mediterranean and Southeast Asia. I’ve studied the celebrated food culture of the American South (which was predominately the culinary influence of enslaved Africans). But I realize that I know next to nothing about the food culture of the Indigenous people who inhabited North […]

There are over 10,000 varieties of grapes used in the production of wine, and yet just a handful of varieties make up the bulk of wine sales in the United States. Cabernet sauvignon sales overtook chardonnay as the nation’s bestseller in 2020, followed by pinot grigio, pinot noir and sauvignon blanc. While many of us […]

My love of bacon has been my biggest deterrent to embracing full-out vegetarianism. When I was attending the University of Illinois College of Dentistry, I had an apartment in Oak Park, home to 25 Frank Lloyd Wright structures. In the early morning I’d go for a run through the historic Frank Lloyd Wright District, and […]

This has been an odd year in my garden. I started dozens of plants from seed in late winter and have watched them grow from tiny seedlings in my basement to lush, vigorous plants covered with huge green tomatoes and dozens of tiny peppers. They’ve been weeded and watered and lovingly fed while I’ve waited […]

I share a long butcher block work station at Minneapolis’ Spoon and Stable restaurant with Alexandra Motz, executive pastry chef. One of the first people to befriend me when I started my new job, Alex’s appearance is quite striking to say the least. With tattooed arms, stretched ear lobes, a nose ring and hair dyed […]

Salt can do more than add flavor and sparkle to recipes and fresh summer produce. Thanks to the power of osmosis, salting and draining fruits like cucumber, zucchini or tomatoes can have a transformative effect on the finished product. Foods with a high water content often benefit from an extended period of salting because it […]