Cooking Articles

Just Say "Oui" to Bastille Day

I love adopting other countries' holidays. In fact, I wonder if, due to the fact it is not my holiday and I have no real cultural obligations to it, I end up having more fun than a similar holiday celebrated...

Double Trouble In The Kitchen

If you take a look around at your kid’s school classrooms and activities, you start to see that there are quite a few sets of twins. Given the increasing number of multiple births these days, you probably...

Don't Mess With My Java, Jack

I recently attended a conference on coffee and tea bars and it got me thinking about just how important a good cuppa can be. There's a lot involved in coffee making, and a mistake or misunderstanding...

Retro Crockpot Cooking

The crockpot that is available today is usually a sleek, stainless steel, modern looking piece of equipment. But the one I remember from my youth was that pale avocado shade of green and had pastoral...

Getting the Blues for Super Fruits

It seems that everywhere we turn these days there is some different food with marketers telling us that eating it is the new secret to a long and healthy life. There was pomegranate juice a few years...

It's an Ice Cream Summer

Summertime for kids is all about simple pleasures like taking a refreshing afternoon dip in the pool, catching lightning bugs, or toasting marshmallows over glowing coals. But the essence of relaxed summertime...

French For Foodies

All over the world culinary professionals speak in the secret code of the kitchen. Historically used as the language of diplomacy in the political sphere, French is equally ubiquitous gastronomically speaking....

Strawberries and Leather

Everyone is always looking for the “next big thing”. And I think this is especially true in the culinary world. Faced with what some perceive as our easily bored and fickle palates, chefs seem to...

Bringing the Great Outdoors Indoors

Aside from bathing suits and swimming pools, nothing quite says summer vacation like sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows. Communing with nature, sleeping in the great outdoors, and cooking...

Nix the Picky Eaters

As you may know by now, one of the delightful things that I did on a recent press trip to the Holland, Michigan area was to visit a cooking school: the Artisan Cooking School in Grand Haven. Having generously...

Lunch on the Rocks

So many of the top chefs are going back to basics by bypassing the fusion route and stressing simple, fresh ingredients done to perfection so that natural flavors shine through. I am in complete agreement...

Mini Pies Are Just More Fun

Now that summer’s in full swing, the kids are busy—and that means that depending upon what they’re engaged in, I don’t regularly have a kitchen helper. These warm sunny days find them out and...

Food Styling For The Home Cook

Food served in restaurants seems to taste better. There is nothing like the liberal use of salt and fat to elevate any ingredient. Freshly made stocks also make all the difference in the world, especially...

Not Living By Bread Alone

My husband and I are non-bread people. It’s not that we don’t like it. We just never buy it. We buy tortillas, pita bread, and corn chips. My husband makes submarine sandwiches, so he will buy a package...

When Your Cooking Needs a Vacation

As you read this, I’ll be in the beautiful Outer Banks on the coast of North Carolina, enjoying the sun, sand, and surf. But at the moment, as I write this article, I am lost in a sea of errands and...

Baking In The Sweet Scent Of Summer

I don’t bake much these days. This poses a problem at times like these where a whiff of a ripe Georgia peach at the market is enough to send my head spinning in nostalgic longing for a crusty biscuit...