There are two kinds of cookbooks: some I buy and use, and others I buy and admire. I plan for the former, but end up doing the latter. I have cookbooks about offal , bread-making , and curing meat , but I’ve yet to order beef bones to roast . I have a copy of the River Cottage cookbook , which tells you how to deliver a lamb, dig for scallops, grow carrots, make bacon, and...
I torture myself with spicy food. This can take form in many various cuisines and dishes, but they all have one thing in common: unbearable heat. It’s not that Abby doesn’t like food with spice in it, it’s just that I usually push things way too far. Like I imagine people do with certain dangerous drugs, I plan an evening when I’m home alone with nothing to do and nowhere to go...
By Blake Royer I hardly ever cook hot dogs at...
I hardly ever cook hot dogs at home--it's the kind of food that I buy on a street corner in a rush. On the way to a concert. When I don’t have more than 5 minutes for lunch. When it’s three days before my paycheck and rent's due. Two bucks on a street corner, less than that if I'm lucky to be near a Papaya King (or Gray's Papaya ),...
By Abby Parker
Although it seems odd because I will soon be married to the food-loving Paupered Chef (Nick), I was a very picky eater as a child. I did not just abhor the typical foods, but also disliked peanut butter, all carbonated beverages, and even bread. Other than McDonald’s, only one food item made me excited to eat: my mother’s yearly batch of apple butter. I would even...
About a year ago, a phenomenon swept through the food blog world : with a little planning and an enameled cast iron Dutch oven, the novice baker could make a nice crusty loaf without kneading the bread. Without shaping the loaf. Without doing much of anything, really. It was a supposedly foolproof bread recipe for the laziest of amateur bakers, and countless food blog posts confirmed...
As you may or may not remember, I’m attempting to go somewhat local. Click back to Week 1 to see how it got started.
We’ve written about short ribs twice before and I’ll be honest in saying this isn’t the master recipe. Part of the problem is that both previous recipes were really Blake’s babies. It was his pot and his enthusiasm that spurred the effort. While I was ther...
I was worried about lots of things when I began this little local adventure , but none stumped me more than cheese. I’d simply never had any local cheese that I cared to have again. I thought it was just going to be something I’d have to skip on along with avocados, limes, and olives (the latter is killing me! Really, why can’t there be groves of olive trees straddling the Ohio...
The chef Fergus Henderson, owner of the London restaurant St. John , known for his kooky demeanor and round, large eyeglasses, came to New York this week to commandeer the kitchens of two Manhattan restaurants, Savoy and The Spotted Pig , offering patrons a taste of his nose-to-tail cooking . Reservations at Savoy went off the offering in two shakes of a pig's tail; the r...
Due to some really bad planning on my part, I didn't have the lead picture of yesterday's localvore post. But I have it now. Here are all our rules laid out officially on a paper plate. The plate was xeroxed and sent to me.
Yes, we did call ourselves local-yocals. Yes, we did repeat the spices commandment. Yes, the last rule does dictate that Nikki must bring a local date to each gat...
It came to us late in the evening some time in early September. A few bottles of wine down and numerous beers under our belt, we decided that we would try to eat all locally for a month. While not exactly a novel concept, it felt noble. We’d help Ohio farmers and eat well in the process. We toasted to the prospect and ceremoniously wrote the rules out on a paper plate.
Those rules and r...
Blake and Nick live in Chicago and have written for The Paupered Chef and other publications since 2006.