Food

Budget vegetarian charcuterie

I had friends stay with me over the weekend, and there’s only so many things I can cook, especially as a vegetarian. I had already cooked my signature pasta, so I thought I’d add …

A memory to relish

I met the Rev. Jessie Jackson for the first time when I was 18. This is about food. Trust me. The year was 1983; Jackson had visited a neighboring high school in New Hampshire on his way to …

Starting fresh with an old box of pasta

I came across a box of tri-colored pasta while rummaging through the cupboard a couple of weeks ago. Now, something that looks like that shouldn’t be buried under a thick red sauce, not even an …

Authentic Italian? Do what your family likes

I will confess that the sum total of what I know about Italian cuisine can be summed up in an exchange I once had with an Italian grandmother, whose parents had come over on the boat. …

Gazpacho: A midsummer night’s drink

In my corner of western New York, the past winter was a lukewarm and muddy season. It rained more than it snowed. The landscape resembled a muddy impressionist painting rather than a frozen …

Beef barley stew for your inner carbivore

The spousal unit is a carbivore. Potatoes, pasta, white rice — if it has so little flavor that anything dresses it up, and such a soft texture that chewing isn’t necessary, she’s on …

Herbs can bring a forest of flavors on your back deck

Nobody told me the herb was a tree. Today, the potted bay plants I bought about a decade ago for about $8 at a farmers market are better termed “saplings.” If I stripped every leaf …

Farmers markets reinvented

The Homer Regional Farmers Market has existed in many shapes and sizes before, but this summer, it will be held weekly, and it will be more than just a place to pick up some vegetables. The …

A student of the world, one dish at a time

I grew up in a community with so little cultural diversity that if you looked at it from orbit, you’d go blind. No Asian people; no Hispanic people; no Jewish people and few (if any) …

So simple I could do it at 11

My mother would call home from work when I was 11. She had forgotten to take supper out of the freezer, and she needed me to cook. I was 11; I hadn’t learned anything about food except …

Cortland 6-year-old teaches cooking on Youtube channel

  Most 6-year-olds can’t pronounce prosciutto, let alone film a cooking video with it that garners thousands of views. But Henry Carr of Scott can. The 6-year-old braved the cold weather and rain Wednesday to film an episode of his Youtube show “Cooking with Henry,” at the Community Learning Garden, 3 South Ave., Cortland.

Jambalaya vs. gumbo

Sometimes I can be such a doofus. The spouse and I were negotiating the big meal of the week, the meal that provides us our Sunday dinner then fills our lunches for much of the week. …

A soup even a crowd could love

Watching my wife’s family get together is like watching performance art. But feeding them is the greatest challenge in easy eating that I can imagine. They actually like each other. My …

Nuts for this nut: Cashew chicken

I really, really try to eat all my Christmas goodies before Easter. It’s not always easy. Last Christmas, Santa stuffed my stocking with a collection of pretzels, candied nuts, chocolate, …

Just in time for Easter: Candy cane brownies

The candy canes had been hanging from a shelf in the bay window since Christmas. They were a gift from an in-law, meant to dress up a perfectly adequate wrapping job on a Christmas gift. But it …

The family legend: French-Canadian boiled dinner

The family legend: Pepere, my great-grandfather, loved boiled dinner. Boiled dinner in my family was a French-Canadian classic. Farm food, from my great-grandparents’ childhood in Quebec …

A recipe that makes me look like I know what I’m doing

As a new adult, (and by new adult, I mean I’ve been out of college for a year), I don’t have a ton of cooking experience. I always assumed people just learn to cook without trying once …

The kryptonite-proof fridge cleaner: Frittata

Every cook has some kryptonite. Mine is an omelette. I love ‘em. Light, fluffy, with lots of stuff inside. I’m particularly fond of mushrooms, cheese and whatever I can find in the …

Gator gumbo: An adventure without the danger

When one is just this side of 60, “adventure” takes on a new meaning. No longer is adventure an impulsive climb above the tree line, or that dip in a lake that was covered by ice …

A look into mom’s cookie hotel

My mother, Lisa Byrne, makes more than 1,400 Christmas cookies every holiday season. Every Columbus Day, she bakes her first batch of cookies, and stashes them in one of my dad’s recent …

Sweet dreams are made of cheese

The extended family would troop across New Hampshire every Christmas Eve when I was a boy, alighting somewhere between sunset and bedtime to fill the living room with noise and gifts under the tree. …

Black beans don’t have to look like asphalt

The most prolific, tasty beans from my garden present a challenge. They’re black. A nice Boston baked bean dish or my go-to maple-garlic baked beans look like asphalt, regardless of how …

A potion to sweeten the most bitter beast

We were nerds incarnate. We’d spend a Sunday afternoon, or maybe all day Saturday, and sometimes on a weeknight, surrounded by 20-sided dice, lead figurines and the detritus of a bad …

Get to the root of vegetable storage

Higher energy and labor costs in producing, processing and transporting food has led to increasing prices at the store. Cutting food costs and concern for the wholesomeness of food have led many …

Will the real riggies please stand up?

 Every family has a spaghetti sauce recipe, and of course, that’s the best spaghetti sauce recipe ever. Who has a better apple pie than your mother or grandmother, except, …

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