A quick jaunt to Colorado on Amtrak helped me remember that trains are an awesome way to travel.  Everyone is relaxed, friendly, unparanoid, and relatively diverse.  The leg room in coach is luxurious and the small stations have free long term parking.  Perhaps it’s time you consider an Amtrak adventure?     A sun rising over Nebraska was enjoyed by a few of us in the observation lounge.  There wasn’t much talking in that pre-dawn reverie but the appreciation was palpable as we waited for the downstairs

  I referred to this pickling recipe in the Carrot Flowers post a few years ago and the Quick-Pickled Vegetable Salad last year, but I thought these beauties deserve their own page.  These are one of my favorite stand-byes for antipasto trays—they’re surprisingly bright and zesty, and the cheery orange is great next to the often dull brown hues of olives, mushrooms and meat.   This recipe is also from one of my favorite cookbooks ever, Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  I made

  I used to make a similar tofu at the deli, crusted with ground pumpkin seeds, cornmeal and 5-spice.  I simplified it in this version but it still has that hint of exotic with the Big Five to add to your sandwich or stir fry. In the past I would often treat tofu like fish, it has a similar wetness and needs to be handled delicately.  At the Loring Café with we used to make Chef Lenny Russo’s 5-spice grilled trout served

  Every culture has their flatbread—tortillas, crepes, roti, pita, gözleme, mana’eesh, msemmen, naan—the list of edible wraps from around the world goes on and on.  This garbanzo flatbread, a.k.a. farinata, socca, torta di ceci or cecina, is common in Italy, France and northern Africa where garbanzos abound.  They’re gluten free, full of protein, and provide a great vehicle to get your favorite toppings into your mouth.     It takes a while for the garbanzo flour to be absorbed into the water so begin early in the

Also known as ‘Seven Flavor Chile” because there are usually seven ingredients (shichi = seven), shichimi is a Japanese dried-spice mixture that can be cooked into dishes or added at the end for a complex punch of flavor.  Though regions and families have their own ingredient combinations and proportions, most shichimi contains chiles, citrus peel, sesame seeds, and nori.  Other ingredients may include Szechuan peppercorn, black or white poppyseeds, hemp seeds, paprika, salt, ginger and garlic.   I recently picked up a bag of pre-mixed shichimi and was reminded how

  Sanskrit scriptures describe the universe as being birthed from an egg. The term Brahmanda is from two words: Brahm (ब्रह्म) = ‘cosmos’ or ‘expanding’, and ‘anda‘ (अण्ड) = ‘egg’.  The Brahmanda Purana, an ancient Indian text, explains this fascinating concept in great detail.  Good reading while you wait for the weather to warm as we muck through this season of mudliness.    Eggs and Spring.   Along with symbolizing life and new birth, in earlier times eggs were one of the few things available

  Black Bean paste is a Chinese condiment used in many a dish (hoisin sauce, stir fries, Asian BBQ, noodles), and a secret ingredient of those from Team Umami.  It’s bold and tangy and can bump the flavor factor of your sauces manyfold. It can be really difficult to tell if Chinese condiments are gluten free, especially if there is the possibility of soy sauce (containing wheat) and it certainly doesn’t help if the ingredient list seems vague or incomplete.  I’ve been searching for GF

  The Montreal River…not frozen.   There aren’t many places that can survive a week of temperatures hovering around 40 degrees (F) with multiple days of pouring rain and still have trails with skiable snow.  ABR in Ironwood, Michigan is such a place with their dedication to grooming and building a solid base.  The Upper Peninsula enjoys (most of them do enjoy it) an average of 167 inches (nearly 14 feet!) of snow per year, so fortunately they had some volume to

  Completely inspired by Magnus Nilsson of Fäviken in Sweden, these crisps are simple with a most intriguing look.  In his cookbook Fäviken, Magnus explains that he started with thicker versions using more types of seeds, then evolved the crisp towards thinner version using only flax.  His cookbook photo shows the delicate see-through results.  Since I was making these as a traveling snack I brought it back to a thicker version so they would be more sturdy and road-worthy.   “Road-worthy”??  Yes!  We are once again pointing our

  Fritter me this. You can make a flavorful mash of nearly anything then fry it up and call it a fritter.  British fritters are often coated in a batter before frying, but U.S. fritters mainly consist of main ingredient with some kind of binder (like egg, flour or cornmeal) then are deep fried or pan fried.  Fritters are hugely popular in Southeast Asia, combinations like squash, chickpea and green onion; or yam and banana; or squid dipped in batter; or a mixture of shredded