Cooking Articles

Your Slow Cooker: The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

Being a lover of all things bread, I can rarely pass up a slice from a fresh baked loaf. But I had yet to try my hand in making bread in the slow cooker until this week. You see I have been somewhat...

Pies, Pudding and Curry: A Jubilee of British Food

The Queen's Jubilee has me in a nostalgic mood. I spent four months of my college life enmeshed in British culture, taking in West End shows at discounted student prices, free museum admissions, and long...

Tilapia, the Other White Fish

I have a confession to make. As a former seafood snob, I never gave tilapia the chance it deserved. When this type of fish became popular in the late 1990's, I tasted it once and relegated it to the category...

Grocery Store Bacheloring, or, Cheap Eye for the Single Guy

As I've written before, grocery shopping can be quite a challenge for the single guy, especially if you don't have any steel-toed boots to wear. It never fails that almost every time I step into a grocery...

Edible Landscaping Part Two: Should You Really Be Eating Those Flowers?

Edible flowers have become so common that I can now buy them in little plastic clamshell containers at the local grocery store. Many restaurants feature them on their menus and bakeries adorn cakes with...

Magical Mushrooms

Okay folks, here goes. I am about to share with you a very powerful recipe. One that must be acknowledged as truly magical before you use it. It must be used only for pure good. If it is used for evil...

Firehouse Cooking

Over the last year I have gotten into the habit of going to the grocery store right after hitting the gym in the evening. I know that the story is that you should never go shopping for food when you are...

You Too Can Make Sushi!

If there is one food that always seems better suited for eating out than cooking ourselves it has to be sushi. All it takes is a flip through a restaurant guide for nearly any American city or a stroll...

All For One

Recently I went out to dinner with my family. As is our usual custom, we ended up sharing dessert after a delicious meal at a local brasserie. We sat around the table together taking bites of our small...

Vegetarian Slow Cooking

This week I will be dedicating my column to vegetarian slow cooking. As I write this, I have just returned from visiting my brother and sister-in-law in the hospital with their new baby girl, Ella. She...

You Say Tomato, I Say To'mater

Some of my fondest memories of time spent with my father during my childhood include the hours we spent outside planting and tending our substantial vegetable garden. There is nothing quite so satisfying...

Lavender: From Soap to Supper

Lavender is for bubble bath. Roses are for a vase. Hibiscus is for graphic prints on Hawaiian shirts. Flowers are many things, but not for consumption. Or at least, that is what I used to think. I...

The Ultimate All-American Creation: the Chocolate Chip Cookie

Chocolate chip cookies are as American a treat as you can bake. Most likely you have tasted hundreds of them over the years. But some of our nation's most heralded figures, like George Washington, Abraham...

Patio Produce: Potatoes

Maybe it has something to do with Mr. Potato Head being my favorite toy when I was growing up; but I just love potatoes. The brief time I spent on very low or no carbohydrate diets was pure hell. I missed...

Sweeten Spring's Leafy Greens

Salads seem to be on every menu and plate today. And with the advent of the pre-cut, pre-washed and pre-bagged greens in every grocery store, it seems that salad can be the last minute afterthought accompaniment...

Let's Spin--Some Salad, That Is

This may surprise you, but I’m not a gadget person. Especially not a kitchen gadget person. Oh, I have a food processor, a blender—and you already know how we love that toaster oven—but I find that...