Barbara’s Mailbag: Wok, Don’t Run

I get a lot of email from casual and long-time readers, and it is always a joy to read each piece of it. Some of the emails are simply compliments, which is always wonderful, but often readers pose questions to me, hoping for an answer to a culinary puzzle or conundrum. Probably the one subject [...]

Images From The Valentine’s Day Menu

It is true when people say that for restaurant people, working Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day is like the entire pre-Christmas retail season rolled into one long shift or so. Those are the two days in a restaurant’s calendar that are destined for wild and crazy amounts of business. This year, Hilarie had the idea [...]

Preserving the Local Harvest: A General Introduction to Pressure Canning

This year’s Eat Local Challenge revolves around preserving the harvest, and like eating locally, this is something I do just as a natural course of events. When I told Morganna what the theme of this year’s challenge was, she said, “But what is the big deal–everyone knows about canning and freezing, don’t they?” Well, in [...]

Aprons Come Out of the Closet

I have recently developed a fascination with aprons. Particularly, vintage aprons like our grandmothers, aunts and mothers used to wear. Something about the myriad colors, shapes and textures of the appeals to me. It is fascinating to me how much time was spent in sewing and decorating an item of clothing whose first purpose is [...]

Wok Wonderings

I get emails all the time about woks. Where to buy them, what to look for in them, and what to do with them once they come home. Most of them have pretty standard, simple answers, but sometimes I get more complex questions which deserve to be answered publicly. In my experience, for every one [...]