In Honor Of Julia: Boeuf Bourguignon

You know, I had forgotten how good French food is. This is because once I got out of culinary school, I can count on one hand how many times I have made French dishes. Oh, yes, I use French technique every day that I enter the kitchen, either at home or in a restaurant, but [...]

Local (And Slow) All the Way: Rabbit And Horticultural Bean Stew

Every ingredient to this particular dish was local: the beans, the onions, garlic, carrots, celery, leeks, mushrooms, rosemary, thyme, sage and oh, yeah, the rabbit. Oh, wait a minute: the white wine isn’t from Athens, but it is from Ohio, and the salt–well, it is from the ocean, which is not local to Ohio. At [...]

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 [...]

Affordable Luxury: Cream of Asparagus Soup With Cardamom and Chives

There are few foods more luxurious than a velvety cream soup. The cream not only gives the soup its incredible mouthfeel, which is decadently intense bordering upon sinful, but it also boosts the flavors of the main ingredients because, as we should all know by now, fat carries flavor. When your soup is based upon [...]

Green Salad with Chevre, Black Walnuts, Apples and Pomegranate Vinaigrette

This very picturesque salad was a collaborative effort between Morganna and I, and it typifies all that I believe a salad should be–a beautiful combination of flavors, color, textures and aromas which beguile the senses while retaining an essential simplicity of presentation which is still lyrically aesthetic. I made the dressing, and came up with [...]