In Flanders, Belgian Endive is ‘Witloof’, or Chicory, and Everyplace!

Dilbeek, Belgium — Most of the time you encounter Belgian endive in the U.S., it is being served to you raw: added as a bitter green to a salad, or pulled apart to become edible spoons for an appetizer. It’s far more more commonly cooked in Belgium, where my AirBnB host and Flemish food instructor…

Oaxaca Mexican Cooking Class: Five Hours of ‘Muy Rico’ Education

In Mexico, ‘mal de puerco’ is how you say food coma, which translates to ‘the curse of the pig.’ That wasn’t quite right for the nine happily overstuffed participants in my vegetarian cooking class from Etnofood in Oaxaca City on Saturday. We shopped for, cooked and ate many things, but pig wasn’t one of them. …

Michigan Spring on a Plate:

Pan-seared walleye, ramps, morels and radishes combine for a spring plate pulsing with color and flavor.

Panini Press Recipes from the Road: Brunch of Leftovers

One of the only things that’s tough for me when I’m on an epic road trip is that I don’t always have the opportunity to cook. I have been in Boise, Idaho for the better part of a week at a very cute AirBnB whose only deficiency is that it has no kitchen (though it…

Southern Fusion: Hot Cracklin’ and Radish Sprout Kimchi Salad

Oh my goodness I created a simple Southern fusion salad today, tossing fresh hot cracklin’s with spicy radish-sprout kimchi and perching it atop of a bed of baby spinach leaves lightly dressed with sesame oil and rice wine vinegar. It’s a play on a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing, where instead of ketchup and…

Leftovers 3: Turkey Tagine with Tejotes and Dates

I traveled to Morocco (and Mexico!) for the ingredients for today’s turkey leftovers transformation, a sweet and spicy tagine recipe that incorporates thigh meat, eggplant, dates, nuts, onions, garlic, galangal, pomegranate molasses, warm spices, homemade turkey broth and a brand new-to-me ingredient: the tejote. My brother Alan and I were in the grocery store to…

Leftovers 2: Turkey Tom Kha Gai Recipe

A warm fragrant bath of coconut milk, lemongrass and galangal (ginger’s more interesting cousin) seemed like the perfect place to put leftover turkey cubes and jiggly and rich turkey broth.   I adapted and probably bastardized this recipe from Bon Appetit. with a few modifications. Turkey Leftovers Tom Kha Gai 6 cups of homemade turkey stock 1…

Turkey Nachos, and Thoughts on a Carcass

While many cooks are fixated on bronzing a photogenic holiday turkey, I’m hyper focused on how what we don’t eat is cut up and put away. That’s because I spend the week leading up to Thanksgiving plotting what to do with leftover turkey. Today’s turkey nachos have been buzzing around in my mind for a…

Persimmon, Fall’s Tomato

I can’t believe I’ve never eaten a ripe persimmon before this week. There was a persimmon tree behind one of the houses our family rented when I was growing up, but I must have always been too impatient with it. I’d only ever eaten them puckery. But then this week Alan, my brother, started agitating…

Beef Cheek and Mushroom Stew with Tasmanian Saffron Brown Rice

The comfort food continues with a stovetop-to-crockpot concoction made from beef cheeks and mushrooms, sweet potatoes and onions, red wine and tarragon mustard and a homemade beef stock. I served it with baked brown rice scented with Tasmanian saffron. I used to find brown rice fussy until I found Alton Brown’s technique/recipe for baking it,…