What’s in Season? Potatoes

Fingerling potatoes simmered with butter and herbs, originally uploaded by shannon_turlington.
I’ve been seeing a lot of potatoes at the farmers market lately: red-skinned potatoes, teeny fingerlings, Yukon Golds, Peruvian purples, even baby russets (which would make excellent mini baked potatoes). Who doesn’t love potatoes? Well, I know a couple of people who don’t, but clearly [...]

Recipe Deal Breakers

Recently, there was an interesting article in The New York Times about recipe “deal breakers” — those instructions or ingredients or equipment requirements that make you walk away from a recipe or even a whole cookbook. This got me (and much of the rest of the food blogosphere) to thinking about what my recipe deal [...]

A Buying Guide for Seafood That’s Safe for You & the Environment

It is not easy eating seafood these days. There are a number of health concerns, mercury being the number-one issue that has been in the news lately. Beyond that, you also have to worry about PCBs, pollutants and chemicals in your seafood. And if you care at all about the environment, there are a host [...]

Running the Home Kitchen Like a Restaurant

One thing I have quickly figured out about being a parent is that the days are unpredictable. I can no longer count on having a quiet hour to prepare dinner in the evenings. Rather, my quiet hour may come in the morning, after lunch or who knows when.
I don’t want to fall back on takeout [...]

What’s in Season? Tomatoes

There is nothing quite like the taste of a vine-ripened tomato picked out of your own garden. Supermarket tomatoes in any season are pale, watery imitations of what real tomato-y goodness can be, and therefore not worth buying, in my book. (Fortunately, canned tomatoes will get us through the winter.) Fresh-picked tomatoes are the essence [...]

What’s in Season? Summer Squash & Zucchini

Aren’t we awash in squash? They say that if you can grow anything, you can grow squash, and my experience has borne that out. This is our first year having a vegetable garden, we planted one squash plant on purpose, and now I am pulling a full-grown squash off every other day or so. Not [...]

Check Out My Mussels

I recently cooked mussels for the very first time. I know, why did it take me so long to make mussels at home? I order them a lot when I’m eating out and if they’re done well, there is nothing better. I suppose I was put off by all the dire information about mussels in [...]

What’s in Season? Asparagus

I won’t say that I’ve been eating enough asparagus lately to make my pee smell (because I’m a lady and I don’t talk about that sort of thing), but I have been eating a lot of asparagus.* Asparagus is the quintessential spring vegetable, in my opinion. It even looks like a bud on a stem, [...]

What’s in Season? Sweet Potatoes

Of course it’s no secret that sweet potatoes are in their prime right now. Why else would they be ubiquitous on the Thanksgiving table? But sweet potatoes should come to visit more often than once a year in a sweet and sticky casserole. They can do anything that potatoes can do, and they can do [...]

What’s In Season? Butternut Squash

I try to eat seasonally as much as possible. I think seasonal eating is something we have lost touch with in our culture of “have it when you want it.” But when you eat a vegetable at the appropriate season, it’s more flavorful and more nutritious. Likely, it has traveled a shorter distance to get [...]