Café Latte in St. Paul, Minnesota, makes their Dakota Bread everyday from fresh milled flour.  It was named for the baker’s home state of South Dakota. Cafe Latte is sort of famous in a comfort food sort of way. It has been a fixture on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue since 1984. The gourmet cafeteria serves […]

This is my friend Ilana Sharum’s grandmother’s recipe from Russia, which she had transcribed over the phone to me from her recipe written in cursive Hebrew. It is one of my most treasured recipes and I make it for just about every special occasion. There is a saying that when you make this traditional bread […]

Crabs are the second most popular seafood after shrimp. With the fishing limits put on Dungeness crabs, there is now a glut of King crab legs available to fill the gap. What exactly is a King crab? The delicious giant crustacean has ten legs, the front two being pincers, and can easily weigh over 10 […]

Cassoulet is a dish that typlifies French home and bistro cooking and has somewhat of a legendary status among gourmands.  As for most French cooking, it is a regional dish originally from the South West that has become popular all over the country and is standard bistro fare, or even bought canned. It is comfort […]

One of the best marinades for lamb ever concocted. You won’t need another one–ever. From Julia Child’s most wonderful tome, The Way to Cook, which is the go-to gift for any cookbook lover you need a gift for. Julia considered this her best book. My Aunt Joan in North Carolina has won 3 cooking contests with this […]

When I use to travel in Baja, I ate fresh-caught shrimp just off the Sea of Cortez boats. Up to that time, I had only had frozen shrimp, not fresh from the sea. The common preparation in all the restaurants is con ajo, with garlic, and from the US border to tip of the peninsula at Cabo, […]

Pretzels, with their beguiling iconography of crossed arms connoting the four seasons or the folded arms of Christ, were said to be invented in a medieval monastery as a reward for children saying their prayers. They were often made in a size proportioned to the individual child. An angelization of the German word bretzel, pretzel has it’s […]

Dedicated to la belle cucina, Marcella Hazan. Pasta is a dish that is gloriously impromptu, especially with a batch of your good sauce in the freezer, and is popular because of its good nutrition, quick preparation, and well, it just tastes so good. In Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook, NYMSC Entertaining, and NYMSC Family […]

There are two basic cooking categories used for all foods: moist heat (steaming, poaching, braising, and boiling) or dry heat (baking or roasting, broiling, grilling, deep frying, pan-sautéeing). All meats, poultry, vegetables, eggs, grains, and fruit are cooked by these methods. Moist heat seals in flavor and no extra fat is needed to cook. Dry cooking utilizes fat or a high temperature […]