A Food and (Once & Future) Travel Blog
Last Sunday I was flipping through my newest cookbook, Classico e Moderno, looking for some inspiration. We were having roast lamb for dinner and I was searching for something new to serve alongside it. I found a classic dish for stewed beans which supposedly is a common Tuscan side for roasts and braises and itContinue reading “Saffron Stewed White Beans: Updating a Classic”
Happy New Year! Around the world you can find people eating lots of different foods in order to bring good luck and fortune. In Italy the good luck dish is lentils and cotechino (a sausage). No cotechino laying around la mia casa, but I did have some lentils and some of my garlic sausage soContinue reading “Lucky Lentil Soup with Garlic Sausage for New Year’s”
It’s cold and damp out there. Soup weather. Now, soup is not that complicated to make so don’t be scared of making it from scratch. I hadn’t made any in a while (because it was summer) and since Cheryl and I sampled some really good chowder in Seattle last weekend I decided to make aContinue reading “Soup Time: Manhattan Clam Chowder”
Every Monday night there’s a TwitterChat I usually participate in called #FoodieChats (follow @foodiechats or @foodiechatsCHI for updates) where the moderator asks themed questions and people tweet their responses. It’s a fun way to interact with the “Twitter Community” and I occasionally get some good ideas from it. This week’s theme was “Eating Red” soContinue reading “Tomato Bisque”
That looks really good doesn’t it? It’s not currywurst but some grilled country style pork ribs with a curry dry rub topped with currywurst sauce. Not only does it look really good but it tastes absolutely delicious! If you like the flavor and aroma of curry you’re going to love this.
Been pretty hot lately so this Cucumber Zucchini Tomato Salad is a great cooler for those days you want to beat the heat. Yeah that’s right, it’s another freaking salad. It’s been heat wave, cool down, heat wave here in Chicago this summer which has made it interesting cooking-wise. One week I want nothing toContinue reading “More Summer Salad: Cucumber, Zucchini, and Tomato Salad”
Ratatouille. A dish most everyone knows but one which has lots of different versions and techniques. One of the things I love about food (other than cooking and eating) is the debate which can surround it. There’s Chicago v NYC in hot dogs and pizza, NY v the rest of the world with bagels, milkContinue reading “Ratatouille – Something French for Bastille Day”
A couple of weekends ago Cheryl and I traveled back to Washington DC to see some friends and ended up having Sunday Brunch at Taberna del Alabardero. Normally brunch is brunch but this particular Sunday they were hosting a Feria del Abril event. Dancers, food, drink. Lots and lots of them. One small bite offeredContinue reading “Sopa de Tomate! Tomato Soup Recipe Learned in Barcelona”
Way back in time when I became more serious about cooking for myself I used to read a lot of Food and Wine magazines. This is a variation of one of the first “step-up dinners” I made where I graduated from using one of those jar sauces to cook chicken in. Those, of course, wereContinue reading “Braised Chicken Legs with Kalamata Olives”
According to the groundhog we’ve got 6 more weeks of winter, so even though there’s no snow here in Chicago and it’s been in the 40s, we’re still in stewing and braising season. And I’ll be very honest here, I love making this chicken recipe regardless of the season. It’s easy and you can makeContinue reading “Basque Style Chicken”
The Roaming GastroGnome 