Blogs

There are basically two types of chefs: culinary chefs and bakers. I'm not much of a baker, and I never have been. No cakes, cookies or scones for me. I prefer the messiness and quick gratification of grill and saute, chop and mash. But bread-baking is the one exception. I love baking bread. The transformation from flour and water to the staff of life is magical to me. So I was excited to hear that a colleague of mine was publishing a bread-baking book. Read more »

Ever wonder how a tandoor oven works, and just how they bake naan bread and tandoori chicken in it? These videos show you how it's done.

Tandoor ovens have been around for a long time. Seven thousand-year-old remains of these cylindrical clay or brick cooking powerhouses have been found in the ruins of the Indus Valley civilization located in modern-day Pakistan. Read more »

My favorite week of the year is the week between Christmas and New Year's. No, it's not because of all the post-Christmas shopping specials. We don't do that out here on the prairie. It's because it's the week that my rural mailbox becomes inundated with bunches of garden and seed catalogs for the spring planting season. Read more »

We're so happy to finally have the best of Whats4Eats recipes now available as a cookbook. We've worked with Tastebook.com to create a beautiful and elegant cookbook of the most popular recipes from Whats4Eats.com and make it available for purchase online. Read more »

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of red and noticed that the homeless gentleman had his right hand held at ear's level, holding a large ripe red tomato. The tomato had a big bite out of it, and juices ran down and off the man's elbow. Read more »

Ever get a hankering for some great Hokkien mee? Want to throw together the perfect shabu-shabu? Looking for beautiful photos of mouth-watering caldereta? If you answered yes to any of these questions — and even if you didn't — you won't want to overlook these great websites dedicated to the cuisines of East Asia. Read more »

A couple of weeks ago I received a phone call from Cousin Joni. She said, “What are you doing Saturday morning?” Since it was early in the morning, and I had not finished my first cup of coffee, I absentmindedly said, “Nothing.” Joni said, “Good, we need some help butchering our rabbits!” Read more »

East Asian cooking, especially the cuisine of southeast Asia, uses a lot of rice noodles. They are served hot, cold, in soups, in salads and rolled up into spring rolls. Their lightness and chewy texture make rice noodles a pleasant change from heavier wheat noodles. Only thing is, many of us don't have a clue how to soak them properly. Perhaps I can help. Read more »

Out on the prairie, in the southeasternmost corner of Iowa's Pottawattamie County, on the eastern slope of the Nishnabotna River Valley, located on the third terrace at the south end of my upper garden is my perennial vegetable garden. Read more »

The Huffington Post has a piece today on the Top 10 Farmers Markets in the US. They have a pretty good list: Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Savannah, Madison. But as with any Top 10 list, they miss quite a bit. Read more »