Join our Cookie Club! Every week this summer, we will post a different cookie recipe, plus we are baking all these delicious treats. Please drop by Kitchen Conservatory to try our favorite cookies! The store manager, Hilda Willman, shares the recipe for her mother’s signature cookie, which her family has baked every year since the 1940s. Hilda […]

1. Because fresh garlic tastes better than any garlic you can buy! 2. It is an essential flavoring in so many foods, so it is important to use the best quality. 3. If stored properly, the crop will last a year — that is, until the next crop is harvested. 4. It is a low-maintence plant for home-gardeners to grow. […]

How do peas know? We installed the chicken wire along the row of green peas and less than two hours later, the pea tendrils had reached out and touched the wire! Peas like to climb up things, rather than flop on the ground, so their tendrils curl around any support they can find. Peas are rarely […]

Since the weather is still clammy, it is still soup weather! Colby Erhart, who is the executive chef at Chez Leon in Clayton, demonstrated a deliciously rich and flavorful mushroom soup in cooking class that everyone loved. Chef Colby, who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, loves French food and trained under Chef Pierre Chambrin […]

With a combination of sweet and hot flavors, pepper jelly is a delicious condiment on so many foods, including cheese, meats, and breads. The jelly can be made with any kind of pepper — from sweet bell peppers to red hot chile peppers or a combination. The peppers are balanced with fruit, sugar, and vinegar to tingle the […]

Last year, I described the advantages of planting and staking tomatoes using the Florida weave. We liked the technique so much that we are doing it again. In the first picture, the tomato are planted between the stakes. (In the background are our potato plants, which have grown like Jack-and-the-beanstalk, and the much smaller rows […]

Local strawberries are ready to pick and they are very sweet and delicious. Time to dust off a classic strawberry salad for dinner! Last year, I was obsessed by goat cheese and strawberries (see this strawberry tart). Well, I still think goat cheese is a great combination with strawberries, so I added cheese to this favorite salad. […]

Many cooks suffer from impatience in the kitchen; they keep flipping the meat over on the grill, trying to make it cook faster. But cooking requires patience and food won’t cook unless it it left alone to cook. Yes, I am guilty as charged. Now, this lesson may seem inappropriate for a stir-fry, but I’ve […]

The schedule of cooking classes this summer is full of fresh ideas using fresh food! Locally-grown produce is featured as our favorite chefs use the summer’s bounty from local farms as the inspiration for amazing cooking: Homegrown and freshly-dug garlic is the main ingredient on an all-garlic class on July 15 with Katy Colson.  Chef […]