Aged balsamic vinegar plays well with others: Vinegar Chicken with Mushrooms

Balsamic vinegar offers a subtle and surprisingly mild twist on cooking chicken in wine. Butter and chicken broth help tame it. Recipe below.

I DON’T DOUBT FOR A MINUTE that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. But vinegar is just so much more interesting to me. (Besides, do you really want to catch flies?)

I know honey is enjoying a moment right now, especially with the sudden surge in popularity of beekeeping, but we use a heck of a lot more vinegar in our kitchen—and stock a wider array of them—than we do honey. Right now, for instance, we have three different balsamic vinegars, Japanese rice vinegar, Spanish sherry vinegar, red wine vinegar and, oh yeah, some apple cider vinegar. We have two small containers of honey.

So when I came across the phrase “vinegar chicken” somewhere recently, probably in a restaurant description, I was interested. Continue reading “Aged balsamic vinegar plays well with others: Vinegar Chicken with Mushrooms” →

Food notes from all over: Mobile Indian food with a side of fun, Cajun cooking in the Midwest and bar snacks for wine

Fake brothers from a fake country serve up real treats from a DC food truck, a former construction worker cooks up Cajun food surrounded by Illinois cornfields, and a California winery creates bar snacks to pair with its wines.

Gourmet food trucks have been catching on everywhere (well, except here in Chicago, where draconian health regulations continue to thwart most attempts). In the past couple of years, chefs and wannabe chefs have been rehabbing used postal vans, delivery trucks and even old ice cream trucks and creating rolling restaurants that serve up an amazing range of eats in cities across the country. But few do it with the style and charming back story of the Fojol Bros.

Only two of the four Fojol Bros. are actual brothers, and no one is named Fojol. Wearing turbans and patently false mustaches, they peddle a changing menu of delicious, healthy Indian food with no preservatives from their homeland, “Merlindia.” And they let people know of the whereabouts of their “traveling culinary carnival” on Twitter. The Fojol Bros., back story and all, are the subject of my latest piece on cable station USA Network’s USA Character Approved Blog. The blog is in soft launch mode at the moment—I’ll let you know when it goes into full launch (heck, I’ll probably take out a full-page ad somewhere).

At Ron’s Cajun Connection, a lively roadside place about 80 miles southwest of Chicago, every order comes with a side of sass, from chef/owner Ron McFarlain himself. Continue reading “Food notes from all over: Mobile Indian food with a side of fun, Cajun cooking in the Midwest and bar snacks for wine” →

Give basil the night off: Cilantro-Parsley Pesto takes pasta in a lively new direction

Surprising cilantro-parsley pesto needs only some tomatoes, onion and feta to make a quick, delicious pasta dinner that won’t overheat your kitchen. Recipe below.

I would make a terrible farmer. Once something’s planted in the ground, I want to be harvesting it. Now. This spring, we (and by we, I mean Marion) planted some tomatoes and a few herbs in the yard. The other day, wanting some pesto, I went outside to glare at our tiny basil plants, hoping it might hurry them along. It didn’t. Not sure why I thought it would work—that same impatient fatherly glare has never had much effect on our kids either.

So I tromped back inside, still wanting pesto and not wanting to resort to store-bought. Then I picked up the current issue of Food & Wine. There, tucked into a catchall piece of various chefs giving tips for being frugal, Chicago’s own Rick Bayless was talking about using leftover cilantro and parsley to make a pesto. Ha! Screw you, little weenie basil plants. I just met some cuter, cooler herbs. (Not really—I do love basil. But the idea of a pesto change-up had definitely caught my eye.) Continue reading “Give basil the night off: Cilantro-Parsley Pesto takes pasta in a lively new direction” →

Ten more reasons to follow me on Twitter

Okay, I know this seems shamelessly self-promotional, but it’s not. Well, not totally. Yeah, it may get a few more people to follow me (I hope so), but it’s just as likely to make a few people take umbrage and unfollow me (I hope not). But my real reason for posting this is the reason I’m having so much fun with Twitter. Because of all the cool food-related stuff there is out there.

Regular readers here, especially those who scroll down to my second posts most weeks, know that I have a real magpie eye, always on the lookout for some shiny, interesting thing. Twitter is a great place to share those finds—like the study that shows that women who drink gain less weight. Or the story about how humanely raised meat is turning some vegetarians into meat-eating flexitarians (both links are below, but don’t skip ahead). Continue reading “Ten more reasons to follow me on Twitter” →

Farmers market improvisation: Stir-Fried Chicken, Asparagus, Green Garlic and Tomatoes

Chicken teams up with green garlic and asparagus from the farmers market and ginger, lemongrass and other ingredients gathered from the fridge and pantry to make a quick, delicious stir-fry. Recipe below.

A friend of ours refuses to eat leftovers. She calls them “used food.” Marion and I, on the other hand, feel wonderfully satisfied and even a little smug when every last morsel of something is consumed. Whether it’s a leftover that becomes a lunch or gets repurposed as part of another dinner, or it’s a last lonely shallot that livens up a salad dressing, not wasting food—or at least trying not to waste it—is just part of our working class childhood DNA. That instinct led to the creation of this lovely dish Marion recently cooked. I’ll let her tell you about it.

One of the great joys of late spring is when local farmers markets get back into action, with their ever-changing bounty. That’s also one of the pitfalls of this time of year. Armed with good culinary intentions and eyes bigger than your stomach, it’s easy to get carried away. The other day, our neighborhood farmer’s market opened for the season and we came home all flushed and excited, toting plenty—especially, green garlic and asparagus. Continue reading “Farmers market improvisation: Stir-Fried Chicken, Asparagus, Green Garlic and Tomatoes” →

Serving up farm goodness by the Spoon-ful, in New York City

I mentioned last week that I’m writing weekly pieces for the USA Character Approved blog. The subject of my column this week is New York City chef/caterer/restaurateur Melissa Chlemar, who carefully sources farm fresh ingredients from upstate New York to make all kinds of goodies for her Chelsea shop, Spoon, and her small, charmingly named breakfast/brunch/lunch place next door, tbsp. Continue reading “Serving up farm goodness by the Spoon-ful, in New York City” →

Rosemary, garlic and onions make grilled steaks healthier—and really, really tasty

The rosemary, garlic and onions in a red wine marinade make grilled New York strip steaks very flavorful—and healthier for you too. Recipe below.

Red meat lovers, rejoice! A pair of recent reports are giving it a cleaner bill of health than it has been enjoying lately.

The first was an article in the Wall Street Journal that opens with this bit of encouragement: “Maybe that juicy steak you ordered isn’t a heart-attack-on-a-plate after all.” In his article “A Guilt-Free Hamburger,” Ron Winslow reports on a new study by the Harvard School of Public Health that suggests that the heart risk long associated with eating red meat comes mostly from processed meats. So while bacon, hot dogs, sausages and cold cuts are unfortunately still bad for you, burgers and steaks may not be. Continue reading “Rosemary, garlic and onions make grilled steaks healthier—and really, really tasty” →

USA Network’s Character Approved Blog launches—and I’m writing for it!

USA Network just created a blog in support of its Character Approved Awards celebrating the people, places and things that are making a mark by positively influencing our cultural landscape—and I’m writing weekly food pieces for it!

It’s getting harder to avoid me. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was 1/55th of the new eBook 55 Knives. Well, as of this past Monday, I’m 1/10th of the writing staff for an exciting new blog. It’s in soft launch mode right now; they’re expecting an official launch this summer.

Cable channel USA Network has just launched the USA Character Approved Blog. Every day, you’ll find stories of people and places and things having a positive influence on the way we live now. To create these stories, they’ve assembled a team of 10 writers to “discuss the ideas and trends impacting the cultural landscape around us.” The areas the blog covers include architecture, art, design, fashion, Continue reading “USA Network’s Character Approved Blog launches—and I’m writing for it!” →

Hold the mayo, not the flavor: Grilled Lamb Feta Burgers get boost from Light Rémoulade Sauce

Grilled Lamb Feta Burgers are made even more flavorful with a lightened rémoulade sauce that substitutes Greek yogurt and olive oil for mayonnaise. Recipes below.

I remember feeling all grown up and adventurous the first time I ate feta cheese. Of course, I was in college at the time, and just about everything that didn’t make me feel idiotic, overwhelmed and scared made me feel grown up and adventurous.

If anything, my first experience with feta made me feel all of those things at once. This cheese didn’t come wrapped in individual slices, and it was decidedly not what was, to my then culinarily naive ears, comfortingly called ‘American.’ Most daunting of all, you couldn’t find it in the supermarket (at least not the ones of my college days). When a friend announced she was going to try a recipe that required the exotic substance, I was assigned the challenge of finding some. Continue reading “Hold the mayo, not the flavor: Grilled Lamb Feta Burgers get boost from Light Rémoulade Sauce” →

Wine drinkers healthier, but should the credit go to the wine or them?

In a trio of studies on wine and health, one questions whether it’s the wine or lifestyle that makes drinkers healthier; the other two show that it’s indeed the wine (or at least the grapes) that may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

As a fan of wine, shall we say, I’m always happy to pass along good news about wine and health. Well, Wine Spectator’s website recently reported on three studies that did my heart good. The first was “a new French study, scheduled to be published in an upcoming issue of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, that finds that people who drink moderate amounts of wine are healthier in several key categories than nondrinkers.” And this being a French study, “moderate” to them meant drinking a half bottle of wine a day. Continue reading “Wine drinkers healthier, but should the credit go to the wine or them?” →