“Where’s the microwave? This chicken isn’t done!” I went over to help the lady who presented me with a beautiful chicken thigh — tender and succulent meat oozing with juice. There was the faintest trace of pink at the bone. Sigh. So many people are so scared of the horrors of undercooked chicken that they insist […]

It’s 6 pm and I’ve done nothing about dinner. My husband has a one-word answer: risotto. Twenty minutes later, dinner is served. Really. Risotto is our favorite fast-and-easy dinner. Sometimes we even serve it to guests, but it seems too simple.
What’s the best aspect of risotto? Creaminess. It’s so creamy that I have serve it in a soup […]

I am not fickle over fickles; I absolutely love my new-found treat: a pickled fig. The fig season is just ending, but run to make these delectables. Why? Fickles are delicious on a roasted beet-poached egg salad or as a condiment with lamb, pork, or chicken or with any gooey cheese. I’m sure they would be fabulous […]

A longtime customer called to say, “It’s green tomato season and I can’t find your gratin of green tomato recipe. I love that dish and I really want to make it. Where is it?”
Green tomatoes are not the first tomatoes of the season, but the last. The tomato plants have pooped out and the sunny […]

Do we eat like this every night? I hope not. Tonight the kitchen gods fought me. We lit the charcoal … and thirty minutes later realized that the fire did not catch. I defrosted a wonderful dish … and discovered that freezing had destroyed the texture and made it inedible. In desparation to put some […]

In cooking class the other night, a student asked, “What should I wrap cheese in?”
Being a smart-aleck, I responded, “cheesecloth!”
“Will cheesecloth keep the cheese fresh for a longer time?”
I don’t keep cheese in my refrigerator for a long time; I recommend buying and using it, not self-aging in your refrigerator. Use it or lose it.
The […]

No, I don’t live on the shores of a raging river, but I did this morning. The excess rain of Hurricane Ike blew through and dumped five inches of water onto our neighbor – a dry creek. Suddenly the creek water was way up. Okay, I’ve seen water before. But, an hour later, our back yard was […]

In redoing and then posting our new website, I learned what customers really liked about the old website. So by popular demand, here are the two most requested recipes. No surprise that they are all about the butter! At Kitchen Conservatory, we use unsalted Plugra Butter in all of our recipes. Why? Because Plugra tastes delicious! […]

Twenty years ago, my husband planted two apple trees. They have never yielded any fruit until this year. I have made pie, crisp, and applesauce out of the few apples I was able to pick before the squirrels devoured the fruit.
“I stopped bothering to spray the trees years ago, because there was no fruit,” he said.
“When […]

There are two types of travelers: those who research and plan the very best possible experience (guide book in hand) and those who just wing it. I travel with a starting point and from then on, it’s anybody’s guess. My husband has been know to slam on the brakes for poultry farms, vintage tractor shows, and […]