Have you ever made homemade candles? I grew up making them from time to time, but it entailed dunking a wick into a pot of melted golden beeswax, letting it cool slightly, and dipping again. This went on and on until I had a nice fat candle. This version which I did last weekend is…
I did an episode of Iron Chef two summers ago with a very talented chef named Joe Isidori. I got to eat approximately 15 courses of steak prepared by him and Bobby Flay. It was pure heaven. I just wish I could have distributed those meals out over a longer period of time... they had…
These are the peppers from my garden this year. You can call me Peter Piper. Thank you.
Pickled Peppers:
The truth is, that they were planted by my brother's mischievous friend Francesco. But Francesco dropped off the radar screen sometime in mid-summer when the weeds became unruly and it was time to separate the men from…
On a scale of 1-5, how ambitious were you with your garden this year?
I started out extremely ambitious. Like, I'm-the-best-farmer-in-the-world-ambitious.
Then I had my ego handed to me on a platter made of corn stalk nubs, meticulously gnawed down by the chipmunks.
Pickled Swiss Chard:
But there were a few successes. In fact, there were many in…
I'm pickling a lot these days. That seems to be the way it goes with summer gardening. You hoe and weed and till and sow and water and worry and then it all comes pouring in at once, faster than you can eat it.
When I have this problem, I pickle.
Folks, get ready for a lot…
I'm so happy to share this video version from my new Modern Pioneering series. Fruit roll-ups were a big thing when I was growing up. There were so many iterations at one point that I was in pure fruit candy bliss. Then there were the healthy versions that we'd always find at the health food…
Remember way back when I made my national citrus fruit appeal? Actually I think it was a global citrus fruit appeal. Well either way it was epic, okay?
Remember when I then preserved some Meyer lemons for a rainy day?
Well today is that rainy day.
Even though it's sunny.
It's high time we use those preserved lemons, don't…
As you recall, I had all of these strange French peppers this year. Some turned red, some didn't. It was very confusing. But they were beautiful and I loved them and pickled the ones that were green. The others sat one the windowsill because I was too busy to do anything with them and while…
One of the first little bits of wisdom I learned when I decided to get serious about cooking, was how to make garlic paste in 30 seconds. It was a revelation and I thought, "Wow! These are all the shortcuts that pros know!" So then I began to work in professional kitchens and was peeved to see…