Any post that is inspired by a seasonal ingredient—zucchini just plucked from the yard, say, or a handful of turnips discovered in a CSA box—is grouped under this topic.
While I was in Tokyo for work, I spent my free time exploring the city’s foodstuffs. It is easy to get overwhelmed with the number department store food halls in central Tokyo, but I got lucky. My friend Andrea Nguyen, author of Asian Tofu and other great cookbooks, connected me with Elizabeth Andoh. Originally from New [...]
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Like most cooks I know, I’m a citrus fanatic. From finger limes to kumquats, I love them all. Blood oranges for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Yes, please. And limes! If the scent of a freshly squeezed lime wedge doesn’t signal refreshment, I don’t know what does. Yet if I absolutely had to choose a favorite, [...]
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There was no shortage of pomegranates in the Bay Area suburbs when I was growing up. Pomegranates were fun things you’d pick from the tree in your friend’s backyard. You’d either throw them against the ground and watch them explode into bloody fragments or you’d peel away their tough rusty skin and white connective tissue, put [...]
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Another year, another batch of restaurant trend predictions. Somehow, this annual crystal-ball gazing exercise never grows old. From 2006 to 2010, I tracked food trends and wrote about them for a restaurant trade magazine. At the end of each year, my fellow editors and I would gather some of our own predictions for the year [...]
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I‘m still surprised at how quickly a conversation can turn toward culinary subjects, even in the most unexpected circumstances. This became clear to me a few days ago when I had a bit of an accident that required a trip to an Oakland ER. It was all frustrating enough, but I’m doing fine now. For [...]
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I thought I’d follow up the post about food mills with a simple recipe that uses one. It’s tomato sauce, a good, basic sauce for any number of dishes. I use it with anything from the fast, like penne and tomato sauce showered with Parmesan shavings, to the slow, such as a hunk of pork [...]
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It is surprising how easy it happens. All year we wait for tomato season. But when it arrives, we often are too busy to take full advantage. We know that there are cases and cases of tomatoes to go around, so we put off canning and BLT-making until next weekend. And then October comes along [...]
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I’m partial to roasting vegetables over boiling them. Cauliflower is great this way, and so is broccoli. Somehow, though, this preference never influenced the way I approached green beans. I always cooked them in boiling, salted water for three or four minutes. Until recently. While in Santa Rosa last weekend, I watched my aunt pull [...]
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All kids, even the ones capable of polishing off heaps of artichoke hearts without pause, have at least one vegetable that that they cannot stand. Mine was zucchini. Just looking at their smooth, green skin made my stomach churn. When my mom put ratatouille on the menu, I spent the whole day steeling myself for [...]
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Laurel Miller is a fearless traveler who will eat anything—at least once. I will never have the guts–er, cojones–to embark on even half of the trips that she’s taken, but I’ve been entertained by her travel adventures and misadventures for years. (Ask her about the near-fatal flight in South America—it justifies why she depends on [...]
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