This grape focaccia was inspired by crates of deep purple, vibrant green and ruby red grapes which caught my eye at the farmers’ market in September, a welcome sign of approaching autumn after a blistering summer. In the early morning light, the glistening grapes еstablished a gorgeous image highlighting nature’s abundance. It was impossible to …
Food binds geographically and linguistically diverse Morocco together. Moroccan cooking reflects the influence of indigenous peoples, traders, invaders, immigrants and colonizers, each of whom, over centuries, played a role in the development of local culture and dietary habits with new ingredients and cooking techniques that remain influential today. Today’s Moroccan cuisine is a blend of Berber, …
This Spiral Stromboli with Three Fillings (of Italian sausage and spinach, mushrooms and onions and sundried tomato and cheeses) is a product of insomnia. I am a chronic insomniac and when I can’t sleep through the night, rather than frustratingly toss and turn in bed, I go to a comfortable armchair in the another room …
Tiny multi-lingual Switzerland is a country of culinary contrasts. In her Cooking in Switzerland, Marianne Kaltenbach writes, “Switzerland’s cuisine is as varied as its landscape.” Ingredients vary from canton to canton depending on whether in a mountainous area, the shores of a lake, or a fertile valley. In cantons where cows and sheep graze on alpine …
I’m often surprised by what triggers autobiographical memories that spontaneously link today with yesterday: A wall painted burgundy in Lviv, Ukraine, reminds me of an old-fashioned recital dress my grandmother made for me when I was 11; the gait of a stooped-shouldered, white-haired Chinese woman in Beijing dressed in grey pants and a green sweater …
Harvest time in the Midwest and the farmers’ markets are overflowing with locally grown vegetables – tomatoes, peppers and squash of all colors and sizes, eggplant – deep purple, lavender or white, long , oval or round, cucumbers, carrots, piles of chard, kale, mustard greens and herbs. But my eye is drawn to the mountains of sweet corn at 5 to a $1 or 12 for $2 — who can resist.
When the first corn shipments arrived in local markets in July, we rejoiced that finally the ten month long corn fast was over and we attacked fresh corn on the cob with a vengeance. We boiled and ate it slathered in butter or extra virgin olive oil and flavored with merely salt or chili powder; we soaked it unshucked in salted water and then grilled it; we roasted it. Each version of corn on the cob was delicious on its own.