Archive for April, 2009
Wrap & Roll: Asparagus
There are more than a couple of us early birds at the University Farmers Market every Saturday morning. Even when it’s hard to get out of bed, I like being there just before the bell rings, experiencing the vendors setting up, taking their last few sips of coffee before meeting the public. This week as [...]
A Spring Greens Risotto Fling
From the Farmers Market or the garden, spring’s first greens play a lead role in Risotto Primavera. Making it can be high drama.
Showmanship is part of its culinary potential, and risotto-making has a way of bringing on culinary pizazz – introverts beware. Go ahead, try to hold yourself back. Like trying to hold still when [...]
Local Tuna Taste Test
Canned tuna is my version of “mother’s little helper.” It has gotten me off the hook for a fast meal more times than I can remember. Need a quick sandwich for a spontaneous picnic? A tuna salad sandwich is hard to beat. Looking for inspiration for dinner when all you have is a fridge full [...]
Earth Days
Family and friends will gather around the table for another Earth Day celebration tonight. We’ll have risotto with local spring greens (Risotto Primavera), a green salad with B.C. shrimp, deviled eggs, stuffed mushrooms, a Bearthday Dessert and whatever else shows up. Good grub.
But the crazy damn stories spun around our various forays into nature – [...]
Back to the Locabar: Rhubarb Margarita
I’ve been hinting for weeks that I wanted a special cocktail for my birthday. Last summer we got so used to fresh, seasonal ingredients that our long winter presented a special challenge for the Cocktail Study Club. More often than not, Friday night rolled around and Charlie would say, “How about a martini?” I love [...]
Rhubarb Reappears
For me, rhubarb proclaims spring. It’s been so since I was a kid when bowls full appeared at breakfast, and then pies on Sunday. I even hid inside the plant and under its broad leaves one time until I was scooted out of there by my grandmother – a sweet embrace while it lasted.
I [...]
Grandma Cookie
I know it sounds strange but that’s what we called our father’s mother — Grandma Cookie. Whenever she came to visit, she’d arrive from Pittsburgh by plane. I still remember her walking toward us in her high heels — (she always wore heels, even at the beach). She’d be carrying two cookie tins, one filled [...]
Serious Puppy Love, Doggy Treats
When I was a kid my dad salvaged scraps from dinner and certain leftovers became primo cuisine for our dogs. They ate well and seemed healthy. Does anybody do that anymore? I thought about that when I read that 25 – 50% of the food we produce in the U.S. goes to *waste.
Not sure [...]
A Good Egg
Nothing quite speaks of spring in the same way as an egg. A creation waiting to emerge, life resting dormant until the perfect moment. Easter eggs, golden eggs, a nest of tiny bird eggs — they’re all miraculous, especially from a child’s point of view. Fix me an egg for breakfast and I’m immediately transported [...]
Horseradish Kicks Butt
If you need a decisive kick in the butt culinarily speaking, horseradish will gladly give it to you along with the gift of its pungent flavor (and a bunch of vitamin C). You probably love it or hate it.
My dad was decisively in the ‘love it’ camp. Cowboy that he was, and he was, [...]
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