Ah, colonial times. A simpler age when settlers wooed natives, Pilgrims popularized Turkey Day, and witches were hung like tinsel. More »

Despite all the nutritional and gourmet conveniences of the modern world, there remain among us stalwart hunter-gatherers. Folks who pride themselves on the hunt, the catch. People who have honed the quiet skill and infinite knee-cramping patience needed to take down a deer, or the botanist’s eye to separate “delicious edible mushroom” from “poison that will kill you before you get to dessert.” I respect, admire, and have lived among these people for many years. But I’m really not one of them. And yet, occasionally, I find myself right there in the middle of it all. The primordial struggle of human against hunger. An individual against the rest of the natural world. Man versus…bluegill. More »

For Rocky Aoki

I spent the better part of the last three years as a food writer lobbying against the likes of Benihana. That is to say, I generally stay away from lauding global mass-market restaurant franchises that distill ethnic cultures into palatable stereotypes through cheap entertainment and the service of second rate food products.

But, now, as I read the previous sentences, I think, “Man, what arrogant bastard wrote that?” More »

I was not a precocious genius, like, say, a 2-year-old Tiger Woods ripping a tee shot on “The Mike Douglas Show.” There was no crème brulee epiphany at the foot of my grandmother. It took me twenty-eight years of school and aimless work to discover food writing.

Though my mother was a fine scratch cook, I ate quite a bit of Hamburger Helper, SpaghettiO’s and Campbell’s Soup. My only culinary experience was making pizza alongside a crew of shaggy-haired, though engaging, stoners in high school. Luxury dining meant the Admiral’s Feast at Red Lobster. More »

We had the fortune of sampling the best chocolate mousse of our lives from Sunday Dinner Catering co-founder Christine Cikowski about a month ago. We asked Christine to share the recipe. She obliged, but, even better, she gave us the story behind the recipe.

Jason (my business partner and boyfriend) and I lived in the Rhone Valley, in a little town of 900 people called Epinouze, about 1-1/2 hours south of Lyon off the A7 autoroute. For three months we worked for Jean-Jacques Galliffett, the de-facto local celebrity chef since he owned three restaurants in three villages, plus a hotel and a bar. Not that there was much competition- most of those villages had only one restaurant, one bar, and one tobacco shop. But Galliffett was talented- his food was really simple, a unique fruit based cooking style grounded in old world French techniques. Valrhona and Crozes- Hermitage, the wine country was 20 minutes away. We lived in orchard country, so Galliffett cooked with what was grown in town. More »

Deep fried stuffed olives and rhubarb caipirinhas

It’s often said that loose women are trying to replace the memory of their absent fathers by sleeping with a trove of men. This might explain some things. More »

Arancini from Pasta Fresh

Riunite is kind of like the Italian Boone’s Farm, which is to say, it’s usually drunk by college kids, boozy moms and the homeless. For a proud Italian to have to sell these wines as a traveling salesman is akin to a Parisian butcher turning to sell Spam door to door. More »

This article first appeared in Newcity Chicago

Some people sleep around. I eat around. There’s been brain, kidney, intestine, liver, stomach, tendon, fish eyeball, brain, bone marrow, thymus and pig’s feet. It’s probably not a healthy occupation. Most STDs are treatable. Mad Cow-related maladies are not. According to the Center for Disease Control, “no specific therapy has been shown to stop the progression of these diseases.” By progression, they mean death. More »

As a rule of thumb I usually mock anyone’s attempt to severely change their lifestyle, especially in regards to diets. I’ve too often been the hapless victim of my own vain attempts to establish a healthy lifestyle. My latest foray into the self-help realm was a halfhearted attempt to experience, first hand, the ebb and flow of vegetarianism.

Mind you, I’m an unapologetic carnivore. My body needs meat to operate properly and if I abstained from all things good and porky, how would I keep up my lovely figure? (More Drew Carey than Carey Grant). This experiment would be more of a battle of will and a challenge to my self-determination than another fruitless attempt to regain the svelte figure of my not so distant youth. More »

When I came back from Iraq in January, everyone I knew had questions about the political and military situation. What was it like? Are we ever going to leave? Did you ever get blown up? Then I talked to my friend, Hungry Editor, Michael Nagrant, who after hearing that I was OK, wanted to know what the food situation was like while I was on deployment. Here’s the breakdown. More »