Eat Good Luck for your New Year!   There was an idyllic snow on Christmas eve, and after walking home from a Norwegian Jule dinner on quiet streets in the falling flakes, we awoke to more snow and a perfect day for a beginning-of-season ski on that slippery powder.  As we skied through the woods we watched a gorgeous orange sunset through dark silhouettes of bare trees—but I forgot to take a camera!  So no photos from me,

  Nearly everyone who eats this deep orange treat asks for the recipe, it is yet another dish that will convince even the anti-yam-ites to change sides and join my Orange-Love Camp.  The original recipe was from Scott’s family and has seen adaptations along the way, the most recent alteration being to smoke the yams to give it extra depth.  It is of course delicious without the smoking, but occasionally it’s fun to do something different.       I

  Two liver posts in one year?!?  I must really have a need to push your boundaries, and this time there is no conclusion to the cliff-hanger story.  Just think of it as another tasty grey spread….creamy and rich and great on a cracker. Step outside your comfort zone in this life. Eat Liver.   You can’t get any more powerhouse than liver. They say liver contains more nutrients than any other food, gram for gram.  Protein, iron, folate, calcium,

  This is another recipe that appears the November/December edition of The IOWAN magazine.  They asked for “Iowa-Sourced” holiday recipes so polenta seemed like a good direction to take the classic dish since organic polenta is grown and produced near Cresco.  It resembles cornbread stuffing—flavorful and hearty as the night is long.  La Quercia pancetta was an obvious addition to the mix, rich with a hint of juniper berries….and from Iowa.   The polenta can be made a couple days in

    Apparently my celebration for the two year anniversary of this website was to take a week off.  Many things going on and very few of them have to do with food.  But that’s okay.   I started this little project because people often ask about recipes for my food, and since I’m relatively undisciplined and mostly use a recipe as a general guideline…I had nothing to offer other than lists of ingredients.  This website has been an experiment

    Still some color left and I’m soaking it in.  We spent an entire day last week hiking in the woods, the leaves were still bright yellow and the sun shone through as we wandered in the golden dome effect.  Funny how I so quickly switch from hiding in the shade in summer months to basking in the rays during fall and winter.  I even use different sides of the street when walking downtown depending on the season, around

  It’s a drizzly overcast day with a chilly night coming on, and time for all of the basil to be dug out of the garden and processed.  I’ll be up to my elbows in pesto of course, but I’ve been wanting to try herb salts all summer so this will be the day.     I was amazed at how green it is even after drying in the oven.  That color will be especially appreciated in the winter days

  I was searching at the Farmers Market for shallots and unable to find any so I finally asked one of my favorite vendors.  He pointed to containers on the table filled with what appeared to be red onions. Shallots!  Shallots the size of baseballs!  It’s a cook’s dream…I only have to peel three shallots instead of thirty.  Either Gilligan’s Island radioactive vegetable seeds have been distributed, or they’re the result of using the incredible Cowsmo manure fertilizer from Wisconsin.

  It’s time for a little image-tribute to the last days of summer and the radiant color of its bounty.  These are two photos from my friend David Cavagnaro of Pepperfield Project.  I never tire of looking at his pictures.  He photographs using only natural light, calling himself “stubbornly anti-technological” but the results are brilliant.     “We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.” .

  A pile of ripe tomatoes and a drizzly day remind me of another soup we used to make in the deli.  This creamy tomato soup is simple and homey, and if it doesn’t bring up good childhood memories hopefully it will create warm fuzzy new ones.     This year I planted climbing beans next to the tomatoes so the tomatoes would benefit from the nitrogen fixing wonders of the leggy legumes, and they completely merged and intermingled on