Tag: Food & Dining

The Busy Parent’s Guide to Packing Healthy Kids’ Lunches

Kids’ lunches have become somewhat of a moving target this past year, as parents juggle varying school schedules and situations. What better time than a new year to take a fresh look at what we’re packing—or serving at home—for lunch? I asked Laura Fuentes, cookbook author and founder of MOMables.com, a food blog and family…


Dive Into American Cocktail Culture, State by State

With a lock on most of the top 20 drunkest cities in America, Wisconsin might know a little something about alcohol. While many likely think this means beer, a book recently published by the University of Wisconsin Press focuses on the Badger State’s love of cocktails. “Wisconsin Cocktails” is the latest work of state resident…


The Dark Arts of Winter Mushroom Gardens

As the dark days of the year chase us indoors, we look for ways to stay connected to the earth. Seed catalogs, house plants, frozen broccoli from last year’s garden—all reminders that life goes on, and will come back around. Let’s add mushrooms to the list of wintertime ways to plug into the cycle of…


Move Over, Sourdough—It’s Time to Make Bacon

I was tempted to call this article “The Girl and the Pig,” because I am hooked on bacon. More specifically, I am hooked on my own home-cured bacon. Prompted by a whole lot of time on my hands thanks to sheltering in place, as well as an affinity for charcuterie, I decided to have a…


Pizza di Scarole (Escarole Pie)

Despite this recipe’s name, don’t expect a traditional pizza with tomato sauce and mozzarella. This classic regional dish, belonging to the Neapolitan tradition, is more like a stuffed focaccia or a savory pie, with a fluffy crust made with a potato bread dough. Escarole is the protagonist of the filling, its bitterness tamed by supporting…


Grilled Radicchio Tardivo

Radicchio tardivo, with its slender, creamy white stalks and curly, flaming purple leaves, is the most spectacular specimen of the many Italian varieties, hailing from the Veneto region of northern Italy. Slightly bitter, it has a crisp, clean, wintery flavor, with a texture that is crunchy and juicy when raw and satisfyingly meaty when cooked….


The Case for Bitterness

The holidays have come and gone, as have the rich, stodgy foods of the season. When you’re surrounded by Christmas lights, decorations, and jolly music, all you crave are fatty meat stews, warming creamy soups, and decadent chocolate cakes. But now that the festivities are over, what are left are winter’s frigid temperatures, cold, clear…


The Case for Bitterness: Cooking With Bitter Greens, the Italian Way

The holidays have come and gone, as have the rich, stodgy foods of the season. When you’re surrounded by Christmas lights, decorations, and jolly music, all you crave are fatty meat stews, warming creamy soups, and decadent chocolate cakes. But now that the festivities are over, what are left are winter’s frigid temperatures, cold, clear…


Orecchiette con le Cime di Rapa (Orecchiette With Broccoli Rabe)

Cime di rapa, turnip greens—also called rapini or broccoli rabe—are the most representative vegetables of the Apulian winter, piled on the market stalls and dinner tables of this Southern Italian region. They are the protagonists of a regional dish, orecchiette con le cime di rapa. The flowers and the most tender leaves are boiled along…


A Fortifying Soup From the French Mountains

When cooking a pot of garbure, your ladle is your timer. Stick the ladle in the middle of the pot, and if it can stand upright on its own, the soup is ready. Hailing from the southwestern province of Gascony, just north of the Pyrenees mountains, garbure is a rustic soup consisting of a smoked…