Food & Drink

PHOTO BY BILL HOGAN/TNS “I know you’re not an elitist,” my husband, Peter, said. “But do you ever worry that you come across that way to readers?” Peter’s question arose from a conversation he’d had with one of his dental patients. This working mother of young children said she read my columns every week and […]

Savory sweet corn pancake. PHOTO BY PETER GLATZ Savory: (sā’væ-rē)(In the world of cuisine) food belonging to the category that is salty and spicy rather than sweet. [i.e. not sweet] From the Oxford English Dictionary Both of these recipes can be a delicious main course or a part of a larger meal. The sweet corn […]

Farmer Hans Bishop, co-owner of PrairiErth Farm in Atlanta stands in his flooded field. PHOTO COURTESTY PrairiErth Farm It’s a scene that remains crystal clear from my produce farm (aka truck garden) days. It was a dark and stormy night. Actually, it was stormy that entire summer. Most fields had to be replanted; some more […]

PHOTO BY SCOTT BAUER, USDA ARS/WIKIMEDIA.ORG Have you ever eaten new potatoes – potatoes with skins so thin they scrub off easily with a vegetable brush, with flesh so lusciously creamy it’s almost decadent? You might be surprised to learn that potatoes labeled “new” in the supermarket usually aren’t. Real new potatoes should be recently dug […]

Salsa Verde on hot-smoked salmon, berries with Créme Anglaise, Garlic Scape Aioli. Photo BY PETER GLATZ Summer is a time for sauces that are fresh and light and don’t require lots of time standing over a hot stove. (I’m designating BBQ sauce as a separate category.) The first four recipes call only for chopping and […]

PHOTO BY JAVIER LASTRAS/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Some call it liquid salad. That’s understandable, but there’s a lot more to gazpacho than a glass of V8, though you might never know it from some of the gazpachos that show up on summer menus all over the world these days: a bowl or glass of cold, seasoned tomato […]

Fried Chicken. Photo BY METRO CREATIVE CONNECTION The delectable smell of frying chicken got me out of bed early every Fourth of July. Well, that and the M-80 firecracker (made to simulate artillery fire) my mild-mannered grandmother threw outside first thing in the morning. The Fourth was a big deal. My family hosted an annual […]

My mind was on Jamaica when writing last week’s column for reasons that had nothing to do with its most famous dish: my new grandson, Peter. Although Peter was born in the United States, his birth mother is Jamaican. Like his four-year-old brother Robbie, he is adopted and African-American. My daughter/his mother, Anne, and I […]

Jerk chicken, with fried plantains, is a classic in Jamaican cuisine. PHOTO BY MANDI WRIGHT/TNS Jerk. Even the name is fun – it could have been created by fast-food marketers trying to come up with a product name appealing to adolescents. Jerk originated centuries ago in Jamaica when maroons – runaway slaves – fled to […]