Most of my kitchen experiments are about the recipes -- things that I really want to try -- but some are definitely all about the cookbooks.  See, I collect cookbooks not simply because I love to cook, but also because I enjoy them as books, and as cultural artifacts.  Some I buy just fo...

I’ll cry if I think about how many months are left to go before any real vegetables appear on the scene.  And although I’m very aware that avocados do not grow in Minnesota and must be trucked in from faraway lands, they still have a nice green taste.  That’s what I was craving thi...

This is one of the most tempting little books I’ve ever run across.  It found me at an antique show some months ago, and I really do mean it found me.  I saw it on a table, touched it -- and couldn’t put it down.  That book was going home with me, no matter what the cost. ...

I’m not making that up.  No, the making-up was performed by two of the contestants on Top Chef (Season 1).  The M.E. and I are addicted to Top Chef, so I was beside myself to receive Top Chef:  The Cookbook as a hostess gift last summer. The book is almost as much fun as the show...

You don’t really think I have any inspiring, creative food ideas in early January, do you?  This is the worst point in the food year for me.  I’m all cooked out after what my post-holiday brain remembers as two solid months of cooking and cleaning for guests.  (Intellectually, ...

Well, there hasn’t been much of it.  Normally, I spend the early part of December in a flurry of flour, but this year?  Uh uh.  I’m blaming it on the months of sawdust.  We’re into the mood of Christmas this year, just not the doing of it.  Anything deemed “too ...

Yep, the vintage Pyrex is out again. Hotdish is a tradition in the upper Midwest, so much so that people in other regions of the country look perplexed when confronted with the word.  Hot dish, you say?  You’ve heated up a plate?  No, hotdish.  One word.  Hotdish.
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I’ve never quite trusted anybody who doesn’t like cornbread.  I mean, bread.  Made with corn.  The beauty in that formula is obvious.  Cornbread recipes, however, are not things I typically experiment with.  That’s because my family has been making the same one -- the ...

This recipe only works if you don’t follow it.  At least, that’s how it went when I -- we -- made it.  Fact is, I never would have gotten through this one without the prodigious meat-cooking talents of my charming husband, the Master Engineer.  I’d still be in the kitchen fla...

There’s nothing I love like an artichoke.  I love them madly, deeply.  Always have.  I adore them so much that I’m always a bit surprised to realize that not everyone knows how to cook them.  Not everyone has even tried them.  I don’t mean canned or frozen artichoke he...