Celebrating wild harvested, traditional & artisanal foods
It’s been said that “One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.” Cherries are a summer fruit, a small red globe that tastes of sun and warm days. Adults frequently forget how to appreciate the goodness of simple things like long summer afternoons and berries picked from a tree and put straight into a red-stained mouth. Perhaps cherries taste so good because they remind us of carefree summers and drives in the country, stopping at a roadside …
Ramps (or wild leeks as they’re also known), are a wild-growing member of the onion family that have become one of America’s most popular “rediscovered” folk foods. Of course, ramps have never really been forgotten or gone out of style in their heartland, a broad swath of eastern North America stretching from southern Appalachia, west to the Great Lakes region and north into southern Canada. Spring is the season for ramps, beginning in mid-March in their southern range and ending …
Hearty and satisfying braised lamb shanks make a perfect winter dinner for two, but if you’re in the mood for an intimate gathering of friends, it’s easy to scale up this recipe with hardly any extra effort. Here’s the secret: it’s made in a slow cooker (sometimes known as a crock pot). Once the initial prep is out of the way, everything goes into the cooker where it simmers quietly on its own for hours, filling the house with the …
This simple & delicious recipe for crispy roasted potatoes with truffle oil is guaranteed to be a “smash” hit. Kids and grownups alike will find them just as fun to make as they are to eat. With only 4 ingredients and a few easy steps, they’re perfect for a weeknight dinner, but dress them up with a dollop of sour cream and a pinch of chives (maybe even some caviar) and they’ll be the life of any party. A …
Fall is a season of transitions. The weather is growing cooler, the days shorter, and while we haven’t yet put away the grill, cooking and entertaining are shifting away from the patio and into the cozy warmth of the kitchen. So say goodbye to summer (it’ll be back next year) and celebrate the change of seasons with these roasted rounds of delicata squash, filled with a sweet & savory stuffing. While you could use any small squash or pumpkin, we …
This mellow mustard tastes like pure, sweet summer sunshine. It’s got that keen mustardy kick that every good mustard should have, but the bite is tempered with sunny sweetness of apricots and complex, nutty notes of chanterelle mushrooms. The familiar fruity-floral flavor and aroma of chanterelle mushrooms is often compared to – and paired with – apricots. The chanterelle’s distinctive flavor intensifies when the orange-yellow mushrooms are dried, becoming deeper, darker, richer and toastier. Here’s the tricky bit: dried chanterelles …
From now on, whenever we cook artichokes, we’ll be finishing them on the grill. A quick trip to the grill transforms the prickly domesticated relative of the thistle into something altogether more subtle and flavorful, with a deep smokey intensity that soars above the simple steamed version. Grilled artichokes are easier to eat, too. Once the artichoke has been steamed, it’s a simple matter to quarter it and pull out the fuzzy inedible “choke” and inner leaves. After grilling, just …
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of tart cherries? Cherry pie? Cherry cobbler? Cherry jam? Think again; a juicy grilled tuna steak might not seem to be a likely pairing for fresh cherries, but the lively flavor of the Balaton cherry is big enough to take on the job. A meaty fish like tuna (or for that matter, salmon, halibut and cod) cries out for a generous dash of acidity to balance all that oily …
Cherries are the fruit of summer. First to appear are sweet cherries, large crisp globes of juicy flesh, perfect for eating fresh by the handful. A few weeks later, tart (or sour) cherries arrive, bringing with them a frenzy of pie-baking, canning and freezing. There are literally dozens (perhaps hundreds) of cultivars of both sweet and tart cherries, many well-known, others grown only in the small towns and hamlets where they’ve been nurtured in obscurity for centuries. Tart cherries are …
In Spain, appetizers are taken very seriously. Spanish tapas, the ubiquitous small plates found in every taverna and dining place, are numerous and varied. With literally hundreds of variations, Spanish tapas are colorful and robustly flavored, full of the bright and bold tastes of the sun-drenched countryside. Like most Spanish tapas recipes, Pan-Fried Bread & Sausage with Garlic uses just a handful of ingredients, each with a bold flavor that stands on its own, yet harmonizes perfectly with the others. This simple, …
