Are you in need of some simple meals during this season of heavy holiday feasting?  Rice and steamed vegetables with this sauce could be your dinner tonight.  Maybe add a little tofu or chicken for protein.  Then drink some tea, take a walk, breath good air.  Sleep well.  Get ready.     What a surprise to find local ginger at a Midwestern farmers market in November!  This is good news for locavores.  This bulb is fresh and uncured with beautifully thin skin, I

. I recently enjoyed a quick trip to the San Francisco Bay area, and where better to spend your birthday morning than wandering about Berkeley drinking great coffee and stumbling upon the Berkeley Farmer’s Market—incredible variety of vegetables, fruits, prepared foods, olives, crafts, characters, and great conversations. Weeks earlier when researching the location for my meeting I discovered that it was, oh yes, one small block away from Chez Panisse, so of course I had to make reservations for a

  Chermoula is one of my favorite flavor bombs of all times. To quote a comment from my friend Heather on my Chermoula post of years ago: “One word…MAGIC. This little gem creates magical alchemy with anything it touches. And I have been introducing it to everything I eat. It is indescribable on veggie tacos. As I was conjuring it, I thought ‘Oh, this doesn’t make very much.’ A mother of five, quantity is always lurking in my consciousness. Chermoula

  Another Autumn treat from 2011 that needs rediscovering…   Pancakes aren’t just for potatoes anymore.  I love potatoes, but there is something endearing about supporting the Underdog.  The humble rutabaga, or ‘Swede’ as the Brits call it, can look huge and weird in the produce section, often ignored like an ugly duckling. Rediscover those Roots, that’s what I say!  Taste the Tubers..     “…Prior to the introduction of the potato to the Old World, latkes were, and in some places still are, made

  My sister puts the fun in cookies.  I remember when I was very young the production of Christmas cookies was an all-afternoon artistic blitz.  My older sisters would spend hours on their colorful sculptural creations…or at least the first dozen or two were works of art, then as everyone grew weary (and full of sugar) the remaining cookies became a little more of an assembly line of decoration.  But as a young’en I was always in awe.   These

  I’m seeing so many of these ingredients at the Farmer’s Market it seemed like a good time to re-post this little chutney treat from November of 2011.  Enjoy!    Chutneys-–pungent enough to raise your eyebrows, but sweet and savory enough that you close your eyes and let out an involuntary groan of pleasure.  Eaten alone it should be almost too much flavor, and eaten as a condiment to chicken or beans or rice…it should make you glad to be

  Patience. I’m finding myself in the middle of numerous catering events and with no time to do a recipe for the post, but I can share with you the lessons that I live and one of those ‘Vague Recipes’.  And some Midwestern autumn images instead of attempts at making beef look photogenic.   In preparation for a large wedding, yesterday was the day to cook off the chuck roasts for the weekend.  I knew because I was working with

  I made this salad for my second-ever wedding that I catered on my own many years ago, it was a good mix and I’m kind of amazed I don’t cater with it more often.  Those first weddings were so memorable—I wanted to provide awesome and spectacular food but was still learning what it meant to haul everything off-site, and calling myself ‘the caterer who goes where no other caterers go’ it’s no surprise that I acquired a few stories

  Cauliflower has been experiencing quite the celebrity status over the last few years because of its sturdiness and mild flavor that make it a decent grain-substitute when ‘riced’. Pizza crusts, pilafs, salads, as pasta—cauliflower has found its way into many low-carb experiments.     I wanted to make a saffron-cauliflower pilaf so I simmered the grated cauliflower with saffron, but after tasting it I was not excited. I don’t know if cauliflower and saffron have an inherent clash tendency,

.   My boat!  We found this cutie resting near the shores of Lake Superior in Bayfield, Wisconsin.   There is not much downtime in the summer for Scott and me but we did manage a quick trip to hang out on Lake Superior, our midwestern ocean.  We stayed at a sweet little 50’s era place in Ashland called the Bayview Motel, right on the shores of big lake.  No online reservations—you’ll have to call or email to contact them,