Food & Drink

If you’ve ever cracked open a can of pumpkin, there’s a good chance it was grown and produced up the road in Morton, just outside of Peoria. According to the University of Illinois Extension, Illinois farmers harvested more than twice as many acres of pumpkins in 2022 as the next five states combined, with production […]

I will remember the summer of 2024 as my Summer of the Goat. I’ve been boondocking in my converted school bus beside a goat barn and working at Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery’s farm-to-table restaurant Caprae in Champaign. This job has been like a Willy Wonka golden ticket for a cheese lover. Our chèvre (which […]

It was a good year to be a vegetable gardener in central Illinois. An early start in the spring rolled right on into a hot but not too dry summer, perfect for growing whopper tomatoes, peppers and zucchini. In my garden, branches on the bell pepper plants are so overloaded I’ve twice had to replace […]

I started cooking at an early age and one of my first cookbooks was the Bantam paperback edition of Craig Claiborne’s An Herb and Spice Cookbook (which sold for only 95 cents in 1965). Claiborne was the food editor of the New York Times and is credited, along with Julia Child, with making ethnic cuisines […]

Fall is supposedly just around the corner, but as I write this the temperature outside is a balmy 96 degrees and a blanket of corn sweat is hanging heavily in the afternoon air. Weather like this compels us to slow down and seek out a shady spot, perhaps with a cool drink in hand. Modern […]

After three months of nurturing and coaxing the vegetable garden in my tiny backyard, I’m finally rewarded by a bounty of produce. Throughout the summer, I’ve been snipping and rooting basil sprigs. Now the progeny of my original basil plant has grown into a lush and verdant patch of a dozen plants. The days are […]

This is the time of year when my heart feels like it belongs in two places. Mornings are crisp, the kids are back in school and I’m more inclined to crave a steaming cup of hot coffee rather than an iced cold brew. The air has the aroma of fall and I am all in […]

I’ve been spending my summer as a chef at Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery in Champaign. I consider myself to be in pretty good shape, but by the end of my workweek, my 71-year-old butt is dragging! When I drive back home to Springfield after my last shift, I count on my two days off […]

This week is all about celebrating summer veggies with recipes inspired to maximize delicious plant-based power. Regardless of what else I’m serving, weekend dinners in the summertime always include a large melange of grilled or roasted vegetables, simply seasoned with salt and olive oil. They fit in nicely no matter the cuisine and can take […]

The origin story of the potato goes back 7,000-10,000 years to the Andes mountain region of southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. Spanish conquistadors encountered potatoes in Peru in 1536 and brought them back to Europe. Leave it to the gastronomic creativity of the French to transform this humble tuber into a decadent and delicious dish […]

Lemon grass is a cornerstone ingredient in many southeast Asian recipes. This culinary grass lends a refreshing, verdant quality to a range of dishes and is readily available in Asian grocery stores. A perennial in tropical climates, lemon grass also can be grown as an annual here in Illinois and can overwinter well indoors in […]

I’m back on my bus this summer, living on a farm in rural Champaign and working at Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery. Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery is about 5 miles northeast of the campus of the University of Illinois, my alma mater. My bus is parked next to a goat barn surrounded by a […]