The St. Louis Post-Dispatch highlights today a cooking class held at Kitchen Conservatory for chefs at St. Louis Thai restaurants, presented by the Thai government. The chefs from Bangkok showed the proper way to make pad Thai: palm sugar and tamarind juice — not vinegar or ketchup. The most unusual technique demonstrated was shredding and […]

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch highlights sweet corn in today’s food section: “When Anne Cori brings fresh-from-the-field corn into the kitchen, she immediately trims off a few kernels and pops them into her mouth. “I taste it for sweetness, and if it’s freshly picked and very sweet, I won’t boil it at all,” says Cori.” The […]

So many delicious ears of corn and so many fabulous corn dishes — what’s a cornivore to eat first? Local corn is in. Fresh corn is delicious in so many dishes: soups, salads, salsas, souffles, puddings, omelets, pastas…the list is endless. The best part of the corn is the “milk” or juice inside the kernals. The easiest way […]

Everyone loves pasta and homemade pasta is actually very easy to make. Come learn how to knead, roll, and cut delicious homemade pasta in these upcoming cooking classes: “The Best of All Pasta-ble Worlds” on July 14 at 6 pm with chef Vito Racanelli (cheese ravioli!) “Journey Through the Past-a” on July 17 at 6:30 […]

A perfectly fried food features a crispy, crunchy, yet delicately light coating. It is never soggy. It is never heavy. It is even good when it is a cold leftover. It begs you to eat more. It is possible? Yes. Battering up foods for the deep-fryer usually follow certain pattern. A wet batter of flour, […]

On KMOX radio today, a caller asked for a new pork tenderloin recipe. Here it is: Ginger-Mustard Pork Tenderloin 1 pork tenderloin, silverskin removed 1 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon ground coriander 1 teaspoon dry mustard 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon ground ginger Combine the pepper, cumin, coriander, mustard, salt, and ginger in a […]

We finished digging up the garlic today, despite the heavy heat. Here I am moving the bundles of garlic to a shed so that they can dry. (The chicken coop is in the background.) Yes, it is fun to drive a tractor! We are eating garlic every day, so all of the vampires have left the premises. Here […]

In a participation cooking class recently, a student asked, “Is a tablespoon a large spoon or a small spoon?” The chef answered, “a large spoon.” The student then used a large serving spoon (about the size of 4 tablespoons) to measure the ingredients. Oops; we had to start over. At a cooking tutorial recently, the student […]

A couple of brown bananas are sitting on the windowsill. “How about banana bread?” Banana bread takes an hour to bake. It’s after 8 pm. “How about banana muffins?” So I collect my supplies for banana muffins: muffin pan, butter, sugar, egg, flour, leavening, disher, but wait, we are out of muffin papers. “Couldn’t you […]

A flattened chicken is easier and faster to grill than a round chicken. One way to flatten is to cut out the backbone and lay the bird flat by cracking the breastbone, known as spatchcock chicken. Here’s a novel way of flattening a chicken, called “leaping frog” chicken by Gourmet magazine. Cut the skin between […]