You are Delicious

June lies precisely at the midpoint of the year between Hanukkahs (Hanukkim?)  This fact, paired with the realization that the first publication rights to a few of my recipes has expired, got me thinking about oil. Coconut oil, to be specific.
Coconut oil figured into all of my baking experimentation for my “Cupcakes for Hanukkah” article [...]

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Mid-way through this 21-day cleanse, I was thinking a lot about human passion. Most animals have strong desires to eat, sleep, procreate, and recreate. Humans want to do that, too. But we want to be able to do all of those things while suspended 100 stories above the ground, after driving on enormous loops of [...]

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Potato wedges. Photo: Creative Commons/fotoosvanrobin
Though neither Super Bowl contender hails from the East Coast area that you likely inhabit, dear reader, your game day spread can still come from local sources. Why not? Local food supports the economy of your home town (or adopted city), and offers healthier options. And with year-round farmers markets in [...]

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On my trip back from the West Coast, I finally got around to reading the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association alumni newsletter. What a joy! All the characters and the nutty news you’d expect from student-run living and dining appeared on those pages: A current Obie fresh from a national co-op conference related the perils of [...]

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Days or weeks can go into planning a Thanksgiving menu. Yet something always comes up at the last minute. Need to satisfy a visiting vegetarian? Forgot a dessert?  Here are two ideas to help.
1. For the vegetarian or other adventurous eaters at your table, try. Un-Turkey and Stuffing. This is my own adaptation of a [...]

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A tomato ripe for roasting. Photo by the author.
(Cross-posted from my Examiner.com page on D.C. farmers markets)
Cucumbers by the quart. Fifteen-pound watermelons. Hunks of farmstead cheese. Entire organic chickens. Smiling at you from a farmer’s table, they look delicious. Plunked down on the kitchen counter, they get a little more complicated. Turning them into good-for-you [...]

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This recipe uses my new favorite grain, amaranth. Amaranth comes from a plant much like callaloo. Amaranth–the grain part–manages to cook up both chewy and mushy. It eats like a hearty porridge with bursts of firm morsels. I looked at my first batch of this creamy base and had a feeling it would make a [...]

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To participate in the sustainable food movement today is to live on the edge of irony. Especially if you’re taking part in the movement from a seriously urban setting like, say, Washington, D.C.
What do I mean by this? Just look at this summer. Over the past few months, I’ve taken digital pictures of my hands [...]

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Cross-posted from Examiner.com
What’s with tomatoes and watermelon this year? I have seen them side by side at local farmers markets, of course, having both come into season recently. But in an odd development, I started to see them together in recipes, too.
At first, I noticed the usual myriad recipes for watermelon-feta salad sometimes included halved [...]

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The following is cross-posted from The Jew & the Carrot

A group of Jewish food lovers, a spread of delectable dishes, and milkshakes made of laughter. If it were possible for one afternoon to be too good, this is where it would start.
A group of Jew & the Carrot writers, editors, and friends faced the risk—overflowing [...]

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