The Miracle of Green

I thought that we were going to be able to terrace the back yard into a workable garden space this year; alas, however, the intractable slope remains intact. The French drains that keep the water run-off from turning our grassy hill into a mudslide have collapsed, resulting in a bog at the top of the […]

Baby Beets With Balsamic Honey Glaze and Garam Masala

When I was a little girl growing up on my grandparent’s farm, my least favorite vegetable was beets.
I loathed and despised them–I thought that they tasted like dirt.
Paradoxically, I used to love helping Grandma can and freeze the bounty of our gardens (every year we grew two one-acre plots–enough to feed the entire […]

Fried Catfish Japanese Style

I am never going to pan fry cat fish in the Southern manner again.
As much as I love the cornmeal-dredged classic recipe I grew up with, I have discovered that I prefer the Japanese way of pan-frying better.
This is the method used to make tonkatsu–pan fried thin boneless pork cutlets with the most […]

Catering A Vegetarian Wedding With Local Food

When Sonia Marcus, the chair of the Communication Committee of the Ohio University Eco House, started planning her wedding, she decided that she wanted all of the food to not only be beautiful and delicious, but locally grown and produced as well.
This choice fits perfectly with her own life philosophy of living as green […]

Seduction on a Plate: Fraises a l’Aziz

Inspiration for a new dish often strikes me in odd moments.
Some flavor combinations come to me in dreams, if you can believe that.
Others lay in wait in my subconscious mind and pop out in the midst of a conversation about an unrelated topic.
The kernel of the idea for this appetizer, which consists […]