Sugar — along with salt and fat — make food taste delicious. Sugar balances the tastes of salt and sour and hot. Sugar is not only for dessert; caramelizing the sugars in savory food makes the dish taste better. My goal is to eat the most delicious foods possible. Sugar is a necessity in these [...]

Sous vide is a method of slow-cooking food in a temperature-controlled water bath. Restaurants have machines to monitor the temperature, but can home cooks easily duplicate this technique? Pork chops are very difficult to cook because they dry out so easily. The meat is so lean that I had stopped buying pork chops. But I [...]

How to make vegetables more exciting? Add onions, bacon, pasta, and cheese! Every vegetable tastes better with those ingredients. This recipe was surprise favorite from a recent cooking class. Join us for our next homemade pasta class, Posh Pasta, on Tuesday, February 28 at 6 pm. Pappardelle with Roasted Cauliflower Sauce 1 head cauliflower, separated [...]

Sometimes a cooking class can change your eating habits. I was never a fan of yogurt; it seemed like boring diet food. Then, Maria Sakellariou taught a class on how to make homemade Greek-style yogurt. Wow. I started making yogurt regularly at home. I find excuses to use my yogurt in foods (homemade yogurt mixed [...]

A hot soup on a cold day is warm and satisfying, but let’s add some pizzazz. An extra garnish can elevate a homey soup into a memorable dinner. Be sure to add the garnishes to the individual soup bowls, not to the soup pot. Here are some examples: Add cheesy croutons to tomato bisque. Sear [...]

Stew season is here, so I am celebrating cold weather with my favorite warm-up: a slow-cooked beef stew flavored with sweet raisins and honey and sour balsamic vinegar. Beef with Agrodolce Sauce 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 pounds chuck roast or beef short ribs 1 onion, diced 1 celery stalk, diced 1 carrot, peeled and [...]

Duck fat biscuits, which Wes Johnson (chef-owner of Salt) is teaching on January 10. Pizza with fig jam, prosciutto, and blue cheese, which Christie Maggi is teaching on January 14. Tuna confit salad with white beans, which Cassy Vires (chef-owner of Home Wine Kitchen) is teaching on January 18. Pave d’amour (a cake with two [...]

One year, I forgot to remove the bag of giblets from inside of the turkey. We laughed and took a picture of the bag of giblets cooked inside the turkey. Yes, the turkey was safe to eat. The stress of cooking a big meal on a big day for a lot of people always inspires [...]

Recipe writers often repeat directions without considering whether that instruction is the best way to make the dish. Here are some common mistakes in recipes: Don’t flour the meat before browning. Many stew recipes call for tossing the meat in flour before browning in fat. But the flour easily burns and adds an off taste [...]

Lots of recipes call for topping with breadcrumbs. For many us, breadcrumbs are an afterthought and we grab the nearest cardboard box. Bread from a box usually tastes just like cardboard. But breadcrumbs can add more than just crunch; they can add a lot of flavor. Good breadcrumbs come from good bread. Just like the [...]