Our farmers’ market is finally back in full swing. Right now it is mostly young greens and root vegetables, but they also have some hot house tomatoes that beat the cardboard versions we were getting from Safeway. Purple Scallions - Deep Purple Bunching (I think)

Pimenton is a smoked version of paprika, which is ground up red bell peppers. It isn’t really something new… all you cool kids out there have been playing with this for a while. It used to be sort of hard to find smoked paprika. Luckily for us lazy guys, it is becoming increasingly easier to [...]

After reading this article in the Washington Post, I started paying attention to whether I was buying Chinese garlic or not. I had a bit of luck when my local farmer’s market was in season. Towards the end of the season they always had locally grown hardneck garlic. I had no luck, however, finding anything [...]

We brought back eight bottles of wine from Argentina, which is four more than you are allowed duty free. All you have to do is declare it, and they may (but most likely not) ask you to pay a tax. The tax is only 3 percent, I think, and on $15 bottles, it doesn’t add [...]

What if I was to tell you that there a tomato that was fuzzy? Well it is true! I got a few of them yesterday. The are small, yellow and have a fuzzy skin. We simply sliced them and added a little salt and olive oil. They have a mild flavor, but they contrast nicely [...]

Good haul from the Farmer’s market… again! I don’t know what we will do in the winter. There is a chance we will start to get sick of having a wide variety of fresh tomatoes and squash almost at our doorstep, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

It seems like the new cool thing to do on the web is make your own butter… and not just regular butter, but cultured butter. In order to make butter you have to take a bunch of cream and then whip it until the butter fat separates from the liquid in the cream. In order [...]

United Airline’s in plane magazine Hemispheres has some great food writing every now and then. In the March ‘07 issue had a great article from Bill Marsano, a James Beard winner, on how to stock your home bar. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find it online… luckily for you I will summarize what he has [...]

When Carolyn and I were in Edinburgh we visited a shop named Demijohn that sold liquids. They had everything from olive oil, to vinegar, to liquors. You pick out one of their cool bottles and they will fill it with a liquid of your choice. We got a raspberry vinegar, an olive oil and sloe [...]

I got the great Adagio Start Set for my birthday this year. The starter set includes 4 tins of tea, a book on tea and the awesome IngenuiTEA teapot. You can get the starter with green, black or flavored teas. The teapot is the real star here, it is designed for loose teas like the [...]

My work has a weekly Farmer’s Market every Tuesday. There is only one farm so the selection varies a lot each week. Whatever is fresh and got picked that day, is what gets sold. The photo above is of a basket of baby squash I got. Sauted with a little butter, olive oil and salt, [...]

Cowgirl Creamery just opened their second cheese store… and it is in Washington DC. We went to go scope it out and get some goodies! Cowgirl Creamery is among the top American cheese producers. They make award winning soft cow milk cheese. They are best known for their Mt. Tam cheese, which I have seen mentioned [...]

I got another hall from the farm stand. Lots of good stuff week including the most excellent blueberries above! Ginger Gold Apples - A cross between a Golden Delicious and a Pippin. It is spicy sweet with a great texture. Sugar Plums! These are so sweet and juicy… They were almost ripe, after ripening they tasted almost tropical.

Sea Salt has been making it big lately. It is lovingly added to menus as an extra flourish. It is add in recipes to make them seem more sophisticated. This is all because it is being touted by Food Snobs and culinary band wagon wanting to make sure they are part of the latest. This [...]

There is no such thing as a bad mango… or atleast I haven’t found one yet. However some mangos end up being better than others. Champange mangos are of the variety Ataulfo. Like all mangos of that variety they are free from the stringy, fiberglass-like, fibers that other mangos have. The texture of a ripe [...]

The Grafton Village Cheese Company produces some of the best cheddars you can find. Their cheddar is so good it makes Cracker Barrel and Cabot seem like Velvetta. Carolyn and I stopped by their factory over Christmas and got to try a number of their cheeses. Vermont is known for its cheese. In the days before [...]

A lot can be said about meat in general. It may seem like Chicken and Beef have nothing in common, but they actually share a lot… because their Meat! I am can’t say I am an expert in this area, but Harold McGee is! I have gleaned this information from his excellent book On Food and [...]

Popcorn is one of my favorite foods, it is simple, pure and good. I will have microwave popcorn when I am feeling really lazy, but I always find that making it on the stove is almost always worth the extra effort. Making popcorn on the stove is a bit of a dying art, people are [...]

I have finally found a local store that has Avocado oil. It turns out not to be Whole Food or Williams and Sonoma, but surprisingly my local Giant started carrying it. It is pretty expensive at $10 a bottle, but it packs a lot of flavor and should go a long way on salads. It [...]