I went to Mexico to eat, and I handpicked the region of Oaxaca specifically because I figured I could eat there best. It’s a place where chiles, chocolate, and tomatoes have been growing for thousands of years, and where the holy trinity of corn, beans, and squash make up the local diet. Forget Italy, France, or Spain. Oaxaca is where my favorite food in the world comes from.
I spent two we...
I heard a lot of complaining this month about Chicago weather, mostly about how cold and rainy it was, and I added my fair share to the chorus. "It's May, already, where's the warm weather?" was a common conversation starter, as weather always is. Apparently, somebody upstairs was listening. This week we have been thrust into what feels like the height of summer: it has climbed repeatedly abov...
Our weekly roundup of what the two of us have written over on Serious Eats.
Dinner Tonight: Spaghetti with Bottarga and Almonds
Bottarga is the secret ingredient for this incredibly simple pasta.
Merguez Sausage with Collards and Couscous
This is definitely not your usual Southern version of collard greens. H...
In today's Dinner Tonight column (the post will be up later this afternoon) I walk through a very simple garlic soup recipe from Mario Batali's Spain: A Culinary Road Trip . It's the kind of a soup I adore, being nothing more than a few cloves of garlic, good chicken stock, and a few pieces of stale bread. The one wild card is hot pimentón, which is a Spanish smoked paprika .
I...
Our weekly roundup of what the two of us have written over on Serious Eats.
Shrimp Tikka Masala
Martha Stewart Approved shrimp curry that's pungent, rich, and easy.
Squash and Fennel Soup with Candied Pumpkin Seeds
Blake could really "go on for paragraphs about this soup," but advises you to just "please cook i...
It's cold season, and everyone's coming down with something. Chicken soup is a nourishing potion, one that seems almost automatic even though I've never really questioned why. Most of the time this tradition involves nothing more than opening a can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup: somehow those minuscule pellets of chicken and mushy noodles are okay once your temperature is above 100.
Bu...
As a cook, I've been rather reluctant to prepare homemade stock. I give the usual litany of excuses: too much hassle, not enough time, not cost-effective. I keep a little jar of Better than Bouillon in my fridge door (one chicken, one beef, one vegetable) and I've always got instant stock whenever I need it, in small quantities or large. I don't have to worry about it going off, beca...
I've been attempting to eat more fish this year. In fact, it's something of a resolution for me. Whether I did it to be healthier, get fitter, or simply have a more varied diet, I instantly dreamt of grilled salmon, roasted whole red snappers, halibut tacos, and other feasts of fresh, flaky fish that would pump me full of omega 3 and immune me from any possible disease. What I wasn't thi...
"Just use whatever leftovers are in the fridge."
That little statement is repeated endlessly throughout the course of one day on the Food Network and I'm not sure who they are trying to fool. It's as if those celebrity chefs aren't paid enough to send an assistant to the store to pick up some tomatoes--not that they need to. Their fantastically clean fridges come stocked with leftover t...