For many farmers, this year’s growing season was terrible: early warmup, late frost, heat wave, and punishing drought. But the tomato plants loved the hot weather and the drought meant that the tomatoes were not overwatered. Too much rain and the tomato plants mold. The tomatoes this year are the best I have ever tasted. […]

Cooking Asian-style often means stocking your pantry with jars of brown and yellow powders. Sometimes these pre-made blends are useful, but often they don’t have much flavor — perhaps because the spices were ground years ago and taste dusty. Yes, you can toast and grind your own blend, but Kitchen Conservatory now sells a wonderful […]

Nonpareil means “without equal.” In the food world, nonpareils are tiny balls of sugar used to decorate cookies and cakes. Kitchen Conservatory sells lots of nonpareils in different colors, plus larger sugar decorations: dragees (gold and silver balls), jimmies (oblong sticks of sugar), sprinkles (various shapes that are larger than nonpareils), glitter (flat sprinkles), and […]

Need a cool and refreshing dish for a Fourth of July party? Green salads do not have to include lettuce! I suggest a crisp Thai salad that combines a sweet-and-tart-and-salty-and-hot dressing on a raw, unripe fruit salad. Once I picked up the wrong fruit at the store and made this salad with green mango instead […]

One of the most common questions I am asked is “what kind of olive oil should I use?” There are so many olive oils available and the labeling is very confusing. Yesterday, Kitchen Conservatory had a class on olive oil, which included a tasting of several oils. My first recommendation is, taste the oil and […]

When you remember a recipe that you last ate over a year-and-a-half ago, it’s a really delicious dish. Lynne called and asked for a copy of the Ginger Spice Cookies from a Caribbean cooking class she took last year. Have you lost any favorite recipes from one of our cooking classes? Email us and we […]

Sometimes we make food just to turn the leftovers into something even better: leftover bread for bread pudding, leftover roast chicken for chicken salad, leftover beef stew for ravioli filling, and leftover shellfish for souffle. The way to make perfect fried rice is to use leftover cooked and cold rice. If the rice is freshly […]

The back of a recently-purchased package of pine nuts has this warning: “In rare instances, people may experience a sensitivity reaction from pine nuts, termed “pine mouth,” which is characterized by a metallic taste that resolves without treatment.” “Pine Mouth” can last for more than a week and can make all kinds of food taste […]

If you like to cook from scratch, eventually you stop buying packaged condiments. The homemade versions of ketchup, mayonnaise, yogurt, jelly, pickles, and caramel sauce taste so much better than anything you can buy. Still, there are some purchased bottles left in my cupboard. Then, my husband started making his own charcoal from cherry wood […]

Chinese dumplings are delicious when deep-fried, steamed, or poached, but the tastiest dumplings are a combination of fried and poached: pot stickers. There are several secrets to pot stickers: the filling must be made out of raw protein, a nonstick pan is crucial to keeping the dumpling from actually sticking to the pan, and poaching […]