Strawberry season seems to be either feast or famine. Showing up in stores by April, berries from points south tend toward pale, hard and sour or squishy, moldy and musty. And that’s not to mention their price of $5 or more per pint. Now that berry season has really arrived, that price has dropped to [...]
The Whole Dish podcast: Medford chef imparts a few tips for foolproof flan Before my husband’s recent trip to Spain, an evening at Ashland’s Irvine & Roberts Vineyards treated us to some Spanish cuisine. Bringing recipes from the menu at Elements, Medford’s tapas bar, chef Mike Hite demonstrated a start-to-finish meal of Spanish classics. Salad [...]
Paella has prompted the most recent posts to this blog, inspired by outdoor-cooking season and my husband’s recent trip to Spain. While paella is party food, incorporating a variety of ingredients to feed a crowd, much simpler fare is the Spanish mainstay. Tapas, of course, are small plates, frequently featuring just a single item, prepared [...]
Paella, featured in this blog’s previous post, often is presented in the United States almost like an “everything pizza,” to quote a recent article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Whereas American attempts at this Spanish staple may boast sausage, chicken, shrimp, mollusks, tomatoes, olives, peppers and peas all in the same dish, Spanish versions contain [...]
The Whole Dish podcast: Rabbit is healthful, sustainable, locally available “Spanish saffron, paprika, quince paste and Bomba rice or other rice for paella.” So ran my wish list of souvenirs from my husband’s recent trip to Spain. We even wondered whether he could purchase a paella pan to ship home. Turns out, the shops were [...]
Asparagus has been plentiful enough the past month that it’s popped up several times in this blog. But as longtime food writer Jan Roberts-Dominguez recently confirmed, the Pacific Northwest asparagus harvest is just picking up speed, a couple of months on the heels of California’s crop. A diverse complement of dishes accompanied Jan’s most recent [...]
The Whole Dish podcast: Premade pie crust makes for spur-of-the-moment dessert Singular flavors of spring, prepared simply, have been this blog’s theme for the past week. To go with appetizers of radishes with butter and steamed artichokes, I’ll add a couldn’t-be-simpler dessert that capitalizes on a short-season specialty: rhubarb. Chicago Tribune writer Leah Eskin calls [...]
A short-season springtime vegetable, singular in its freshness and flavor, can whet one’s appetite like complicated canapés simple can’t. Such was the premise of this blog’s previous post, basically an encouragement to serve a board of garden-fresh radishes with compound butter for your next gathering. A chilled stone slab (I have one inset in a [...]
Laboring over a cheese platter recently rewarded me with a restaurant-quality spread. At least it was to my eye. Too bad the kitchen lighting didn’t produce a photo worthy of Instagram. It helps, of course, to have a variety of attractive serving boards and platters from which to choose. On a natural stone slab, I [...]
Even before the latest nationwide E. coli outbreak, I’ve never been too keen on romaine lettuce. Largely flavorless, the lettuce isn’t redeemed on my palate by thick veins that can be watery or woody, depending on age and provenance. Fringing that thick, interior fiber, romaine leaves often can be hopelessly limp. I like my salad [...]