Food & Drink

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 […]

What do you get when you put a Salade Niçoise between two pieces of crusty bread? You get a portable feast known as a Pan Bagnat. Pan Bagnat means “bathed bread” and, like the Salade Niçoise, it is a popular regional dish found around Nice in the French Riviera. Traditionally it was a carry-along meal […]

Caponata is one of my favorite ways to use the abundance of eggplant that comes out of my garden each year, and works especially well with the little Fairytale eggplants often seen at farmers markets. This tangy cooked salad is found throughout Sicily and much of Italy, with as many variations as there are grandmas. […]

A year ago could anyone have envisioned a summertime in the Land of Lincoln without the Downhome Music Festival, Muni Opera, International Carillon Festival or the Illinois State Fair? For the first time since 1945, the usually bustling fairground has been silenced. The beer tents are empty. No concerts in the Grandstand. No butter cow. […]

Fruit butters are a fun and relatively straightforward way to preserve the sweet taste of summer for months to come. Unlike jams and jellies, which rely on the addition of pectin to thicken and gel, fruit butters are made by slowly cooking down fruit pulp and sugar to a rich spread, perfect for so much […]

Back in the days when I was still a dentist, after giving an injection and waiting for anesthesia to kick in, I’d have an opportunity to chat with my patients for a bit. Karen, one of my longtime patients, knowing of my interest in food and cooking, told me about her recent trip to NYC […]

Parsley is one of my favorite ingredients. The salt of the herb world, parsley’s fresh, herbaceous qualities serve to highlight, accent and brighten almost all savory dishes. Beyond just garnish, herbs like parsley, dill, cilantro and mint form the foundation of many dishes around the globe, especially in regions surrounding the Fertile Crescent. High summer […]

Foods wrapped and cooked in leaves appear in culinary cultures all over the world. In Mexico, tamales are wrapped and steamed in corn husks or banana leaves. In Thailand there is a dish known as aeb consisting of fish wrapped and cooked in banana leaf packets. Zongzi is a Mandarin Chinese dish made with sticky […]

Amid the myriad of jewel-toned produce available right now at local markets and farm stands are striking little vegetables (technically they’re fruits) vaguely reminiscent of flying saucers. These cheerful little cucurbits, known as patty pans, are a type of summer squash closely related to the more recognizable green and yellow zucchini, with a similar texture […]