I like all things pickled. Pickled peppers, pickled ramps, pickled... things.Sorry. I'm not feeling very eloquent today. I just read a lot of legal jargon and it fried my brain and my eyes are blurry. I can barely see this screen. I'm waiting for things to return to normal... which isn't necessarily eloquent either, but…
A few weeks ago I rendered some duck fat.And then I rendered some pig fat.And it was good.Whenever you render fat, you're left over with something we call "cracklin'." It's an automatically southern word. Don't bother putting a proper -ing on the end of it, you're wasting your time. It's cracklin'.The first time I heard…
A while ago I uncovered a recipe book from my great-great grandmother. It was full of recipes for brown bread. She was mildly obsessed with it I think. Maybe it tapped into her Puritan nature and she felt satisfied by its simplicity.Then a while after that, I got the latest edition of our family recipe…
I'm 1/8 Irish.I couldn't let St. Patrick's Day go by without a nod. It is beloved by so many after all. It's a passport to drink a month's worth of beer in one day. And to wear buttons demanding to be kissed.But I can't say it's a holiday that celebrates my favorite foods.I thought about…
The first time I saw a wild boar smoking slowly under the soot-blackened eaves of a dome-shaped grill I was mesmerized. I was standing 100 yards from the banks of the Mississippi, deep in the beating heart of the Arkansas Delta. The body of the pig was cloaked in thick slabs of bacon which were…
On Friday when I was showing you my adventures in thin crust pizza, one of the ingredients that I unloaded onto the crust was caramelized onions. And then it dawned on me that maybe not everyone knows how to caramelize onions...Do you know how? Do you want a quick little demo? Hm...I'll take your silence…
Chicken breasts are hard to get right. Chicken tenders though... well that's a different matter altogether. A lot of protein tastes better when it's cooked low and slow. You can still get the brown crusty outside if you play with the fire...These are perfect for you Super Bowl watchers this weekend.You know who you are.…
A few weeks ago Grandma Pellegrini sent me an email. Yes, she does email. She also does facebook. It is the dawn of a new era.She said: "I'm just sitting down to enjoy my soup and my latest triumph in the kitchen. I decided this morning to put my various cast iron baking pans to…
Guess what this is...I'll give you one clue...It's not a leotard.Okay, I'll give you another clue...Now guess?Okay, okay, geez, one more clue!Red quinoa!!!If you've never heard of it before, you're not alone. It's been slowly rising to stardom recently but hasn't reached full celebrity status yet. It's a grain-like crop grown for its edible seeds.…