As much as I love the processed, freakishly accurate artificial meat, sometimes it’s nice to be able to whip up your own protein as a vegetarian. These chickpea tacos are comically simple, …
The publisher does something that alternately amazes and leads me to conclude he’s nuts. Or both simultaneously. He forages for mushrooms. I’m a big mushroom fan, myself. The …
My spousal unit, The Brain, has been wanting to eat a bit less meat. Who am I to argue? One, she’s one of the five smartest people I’ve ever met, and she’s never wrong. Two, …
For 15 years or more, my wife and my son would go out to lunch on Saturday, while I stayed home, put away the groceries and ate leftovers for lunch. It’s a mother-son bonding thing, and …
Serving per serving, eggs remain a pretty economical way to get protein into one’s diet. Certainly, a couple of eggs is cheaper than a burger or two. But the price has been going up, …
Apparently there’s this thing every January or February. A bunch of guys in armor run at each other at full speed in what seems to be a regimented game of keep-away. It’s called the …
It started with a mistake. I had visited one of my favorite farmers and grabbed what I thought was a bag of salad greens. It turns out it was spinach — tasty and fresh and all that, but …
I often tell people that I was the Big Bad Wolf, and I was. But I don’t often mention that I was also the Gingerbread Man. My first job as a 16-year-old high school student in New …
Over the years, I’ve found myself at a couple of chili cook-offs, and some wonderfully inventive takes on the Tex-Mex stew. Now, there are as many different concepts of “chili” …
My wife is nuts for trail mix. As snacks go, it’s a pretty good one. Nuts and seeds have a good amount of protein and fiber. Fruit has fiber, too, plus a variety of nutrients. She nibbles …
ITHACA — The Friends of Ithaca Farmers Market will get $109,255 in federal funds to create a shared commercial kitchen for food entrepreneurs looking to expand business and sell at places like …
The only thing that rivals “Oprah’s Favorite things,” the TV segment that spawned the famous “You get a car! And you get a car!” is Byrne’s Favorite Things, a New …
My most memorable article, judging by how much readers bring it up, is last December’s article on my mom’s cookie hotel. Lisa Byrne makes more than 1,400 Christmas …
Columnist and wit Calvin Trillian once said nobody ever buys a fruitcake for oneself. Comedian Johnny Carson once remarked that there’s only one fruitcake in the world, and each Christmas, …
I had a few friends visit for Halloween, and there’s two things that hungover people with glitter still lurking on their faces don’t want to do the morning after a bar crawl: Go outside; …
One Thanksgiving, the smallest turkey I could get from my favorite meat supplier in Preble was 28 pounds. We called him Goliath. Now, Goliath was meant to feed three people and even if one was a …
You wake up Thanksgiving morning and realize you forgot to thaw the turkey. Don’t panic. The goal is to get the rock-hard bird above 32 degrees quickly, without it exceeding 40 degrees, …
My grandmother made great gravy: velvety smooth, tasty. It never broke and was never greasy. One Thanksgiving I asked her: “Gram, how do you make such good gravy?” The response …
Once upon a time, I was enthralled at cranberry sauce that looked just like the can it came in. I was 4. But for years, decades really, I’d have no more than a spoonful next to the …
My aunt had a side hustle for years: She’d make pies, freeze them, and sell them to restaurants and gourmet food stores. I don’t particularly recall if the filling was great — …
The challenge with cooking for Thanksgiving ahead of time isn’t the cooking part, it’s the storage. Just ask the spouse. The refrigerator (She still grumbles that …
The spousal unit likes to remind me that Thanksgiving is my Super Bowl. Training begins about March. Menu planning. What to plant in the garden. How to source the turkey. Options, backup plans, …
It’s been called America’s bechamel sauce. It’s been called a gift to the busy housewife (and how sexist is that?) It’s found in recipes from beef stroganoff to …
I’m almost afraid to say I like cooking Italian. The neighborhood has such a large Italian community that I fear anything I tell people I make will be dismissed by Italian-Americans as not …
My eggplant recipes don’t scale well. And this year, that’s a problem. Eggplant parmesan requires a certain amount of eggplant. So does ratatoullie. But this year, the spousal unit …
