Cooking Articles

All-American Slow Cooking

On our most patriotic holiday, we honor our heritage by cooking all-American favorite foods such as grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, barbecued ribs, barbecued chicken, corn on the cob and coleslaw. And...

Mint: One Man's Weed Is Another Man's Mojito

Mint might be misunderstood. On one hand, it is an invasive weed that stubbornly grows in the yards of even the most black-thumbed gardeners and threatens to take over the herb gardens of the green thumbed....

Pop, Bang, Fizz, Happy Fourth of July!

‘Tis the season for dazzling displays of fireworks and at-home sparkler shows. The highlight of my summer growing up was our family Fourth of July trip to my aunt and uncle’s horse farm in Virginia....

Trust Me, Gut Busting is a Must

"The Franklin Fountain aims to serve an experience infused with ideals, drizzled with drollery and sprinkled with the forgotten flavors of the American past." Thus reads an elegantly framed script under...

Cooking With Soda Pop

A happy accident occurred a few years ago when I was getting ready to cater a team building party for some computer company executives. The plan was for the group from this company to attend a hockey...

A World of Beans

Beans are not one of those foods that you find people writing sonnets about. Aside from the well known children’s verse, “Beans, beans, the musical fruit”, only the story of Jack and the Beanstalk...

Going Off The Grid

My wish for cooler weather was granted one quiet afternoon last week, when the familiar smell of ozone that precedes a lightning storm hit the air. As our dog started to do her normal pre-storm routine...

Green With Envy

"It's not easy being green." These are familiar words from a familiar frog, but completely untrue when it comes to vegetables. So many people, though, make the unfortunate mistake of overcooking their...

Asparagus and . . .

At some point during the day, most of us will ask the question “What’s for dinner tonight?” For the past six weeks, I knew with a good degree of certainty that my answer to that question would be...

A Little Hawaii At Home

It is quite possible that I spent more money on gas this morning driving to my local coffee shop to get my usual cup of Joe than I spent on the latte itself. With the price of gas sucking every last dollar...

Learning to Make Pasta

Pasta. It's one of my favorite foods. Convenient, quick cooking and in shapes and forms to meet almost any appetite (and recipe), pasta is one smart go-to solution when I'm in a mealtime crunch. I usually...

Life With Dishwasher

Our life has entered the modern era. Yep, our kitchen now has a dishwasher. What, you say? A food writer and columnist whose kitchen was missing that all-important appliance? Yep, ‘tis true. After...

Hot Dang!

Central Texas is already in a heat wave, y'all—for the past two weeks it's been in the triple digits, and there's no sign of these high temps coming to an end. These temps bring irony, as the second...

Tales of a Food Stylist

How does Emeril make all that food for Good Morning America so early in the morning? Well, matter of factly, he doesn’t. Most chefs of fame and stature do not have the time to arrive at a network at...

The Other Independence Day

Chances are as you are reading this article you still may be recovering from a 4th of July celebration. But before you write off the rest of the summer as devoid of meaningful holidays until the fall,...

A Bastille Day Picnic From the Slow Cooker

Last year we were lucky enough to happen upon a little street festival in New York celebrating Bastille Day. Bastille Day falls on July 14 and is a French national holiday commemorating the storming of...