While I was at the Charleston Wine and Food Festival from March 3rd to 5th to do a demo and judge the biscuit battle, I was interviewed by Caity Moseman Wadler of Heritage Radio. We talked about “Home Cooking 101,” what I learned from Julia Child, and the changing food world. You can listen here.
I recently got this question from John: “Every recipe that I read that includes cornmeal never states what grind to use. How can I determine which grind to use? Should it be Coarse, Fine or Corn flour?” Until the last decade, it was very difficult to find anything but steel-ground…
A New York Times article shows that busy Americans are enjoying more home-cooked meals and fewer commercially- prepared meals these days. With more new and returning home cooks in the kitchen, “Sara Moulton’s Home Cooking 101: How to Make Everything Taste Better” would be a great guide and right on time to offer…
I just took a river cruise in Provence with The Husband for our 35th Wedding Anniversary and it turned out to be the perfect way to celebrate the occasion. Come along as we explore this area of France and discover some amazing food. Day One: Hello From Lyon Yesterday marked the…
I just took a river cruise in Provence with The Husband for our 35th Wedding Anniversary and it turned out to be the perfect way to celebrate the occasion. Come along as we explore this area of France and discover some amazing food. Hello from Lyon: We are excited to be in Lyon…
Arles was our final destination. Best known as the inspiration for the several hundred canvases Van Gogh painted there in 1888 and 1889, this small city is sunny, cozy, and colorful. Indeed, parts of it are unchanged since Van Gogh’s day and on the morning we visited we were duly…
Spent the day in Avignon, a medieval city surrounded by stone walls. For 70 years during the 14th Century, it displaced Rome as the papal seat of the Catholic Church. Today it is a modern city of rare charm, perhaps best known to outsiders as the home of the…
The river took us today to the mountain town of Tournon Sur Rhone, where we boarded a locomotive straight out of “Death Valley Days” and chugged off into the mountains surrounding the Doux River. This is rugged country – wine country — green, rocky, and utterly beautiful. The air was…
Got up bright and early to check out Vienne, a perfect little gem of a city, population 30,000, whose roots go back to the Roman era. Two thousand years later, one of its enduring attractions is the Temple of Augustus and Livia, a magnificent ruin in the center of…
Yesterday, after a quick walk in Lyon in search of cough drops for The Husband (he’s fighting a cold, poor guy), we came back to the ship for lunch. The centerpiece was the most delicious garlic soup. It was garnished with chopped hard-cooked egg white and caramelized garlic chips. It…
We boarded our ship, the Viking Heimdal, docked on the River Rhone in Lyon, settled in our cozy little room with a balcony where I plan to spend a lot of time and got ready to sail this morning to Macon. The plan was scrapped though, thanks to some kind…
Day 2 and 3 in Lyon. On the way back to the Carlton Hotel after our dinner at La Tassée – The Husband was knocked out by his rognons – we were hanging out by the fountains in the Place de la Republique when our attention was arrested by a…
Yesterday marked the 35th anniversary since the day The Husband and I tied the knot. I know – 35 years! I can’t tell you where the time went, but I can tell that the two of us have snuck away to Lyon to celebrate. We went there for the first…
Grilled Octopus is a favorite on menus all across the country but people tell me that they are afraid to try to prepare it at home. I thought that would be a great topic for my show and my latest book so I enlisted the help of Dave Pasternack,…
One of the most frequent questions that come in to the Kitchen Shrink is, “How can I melt chocolate without the risk of it scorching or suddenly getting firm.” Chocolate is very sensitive to heat and it is best to melt it slowly. I like to melt it in the…
On Saturday, April 9th from 7 to 10 pm I was the celebrity guest chef for “An Evening Uncorked,” the 15th anniversary celebration of great food and fine wine benefitting Rhode Island PBS. I will be on hand for photos and cookbook signing; hope you will stop by and say “hello.” The event will be…
You can freeze anything in an ice cube tray and then float it in a drink. Fruit is an excellent candidate, any kind, pureed and strained (optional – I don’t mind seeds) will make a lovely addition to a summer drink. Or herbal or regular tea. They can be added…
After my morning cup (well, cups) of coffee all I want on a hot summer afternoon is iced coffee and what better way to ice it then with coffee ice cubes – double whammy! or you can take it even further and throw the cubes into a blender with…
I’m sure it’s happened to you – you forgot to taste one more time and added more salt anyway and then realized that suddenly your stew/soup/sauce was so salty it was inedible. For years I thought the answer was to add one of these three starchy foods: …
There is absolutely nothing better in the summer than a ripe tomato. We have a garden in the back field of my parents old farmhouse and some years I can’t keep up with the crop: Even though this kind of harvest makes me feel slightly like Lucy trying to wrap…
I take my life into my own hands by saying this. I’m sure all my chef instructors from my alma mater, the Culinary Institute of America, will want to shoot me at dawn. But here is what I have discovered from cooking dinner at home 5 or 6 nights a…
I bet many of you, like me today, are picking up corn at the farm stand or farmer’s market, which is a good thing, because corn close to the source (as opposed to trucked miles from the farm) is fresher. But there is a problem with corn – the second…
This is not about my Napoleon complex. I really mean it -we little people work better with a bigger knife. Actually, mostly, big people chop more efficiently with a bigger knife too. Why? Well, Here are two chef’s knives, side by side, an 8-inch and a 10-inch: The 10-inch knife…
I am not much of a baker but I certainly would not bother at all if I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico or McCall Idaho, that is unless I owned this book: It is written by one of my most trusted baking experts, Susan Purdy, who spent years testing…