The husband and I had Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner by ourselves. We’re hibernating, like big antisocial bears — he’s drywalling and I’m organizing my files, but don’t pity us, we couldn’t be happier. I hadn’t really planned out what we were going to eat, simply going to the farmers market Saturday and loading up on whatever looked good, but I ended up cooking a lot — so much so that we’ll be having leftovers ’til New Year’s.

Nearly fifty years after editing “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” the book that launched Julia Child, Judith Jones (now senior editor and vice-president at Alfred A. Knopf) has written her own memoir: “The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food.” Having grown up in a family that served only staid, simple, British-influenced meals, she developed a passion for food and cooking that led her to France (and back) and, eventually, to editing a large number of ground-breaking cookbooks.

I love to bake bread. It can be a messy process, requires a lot of patience, and rarely results in bread as good as what Bay Area bread wizards like Acme and Vital Vittles sell at many nearby markets. But that’s OK with me — the process is as important as the product. Bread […]

Why not try ditching those store-bought gifts in favor of sharing one of your favorite food traditions? Making a special treat allows you the chance to share a family recipe and a meaningful part of your personal history. Using your kitchen skills to create gifts is usually more economical as well, and it can also allow you to recycle empty bottles, jars, or tins as gift containers. Best of all, cooking up presents allows you to showcase some of your favorite local foods and to share the local bounty.

Since becoming a vegetarian, I’ve been more inclined to celebrate Thanksgiving according to its original intent: to give thanks for a successful harvest by eating the results of that harvest. I like to look to the garden or the farmers market and celebrate the rich bounty of vegetables available at this time of the year — as well as the stories behind them — to celebrate a 100-Mile Thanksgiving, at least in part.

We’re in the weeds up to our bleary eyeballs with deadlines and other pesky interruptions to our regular blogging obsessiveness. In the meantime, please nosh on this cooking-themed third installment from Barry Foy’s Devil’s Food Dictionary, that "pioneering culinary reference work consisting entirely of lies":

celebrity chef An accomplished chef who, because his food’s prices have […]

The mass media’s coverage of food is a cacophony of quick fixes ("Eat a handful of goji berries and wipe out the effects of those two fast-food burgers you ate for lunch!") and hype ("Do cranberries cure cancer? Stay tuned for a shocking new report").
Heidi Swanson — creator of the 101 Cookbooks website — […]

When apple harvest time comes around, look for cider vinegar, too, and find new ways to incorporate it into your cooking.

So of course, I decided that’s what I had to bring to this potluck: not only a dish I’d never made before, but a thing I’d barely even tried and was pretty sure I wouldn’t like, plus that most people wouldn’t want to sample….

When the leaves begin to fall from the trees around these parts and the Canadian geese fill the skies, some folks smile with delight at the vibrant colours of the fall foliage. Other folks, a group which I belong to, see it in a different light. For me, autumn signals the death of the […]

For a Grub potluck with the theme of "back to school" (make something you have never made before), I contributed chiles en nogada, a fairly complicated combination of a roasted poblano chili, a vegetable or meat mixture, a creamy walnut sauce, and pomegranate seeds. These ingredients are found together at the farmers market only […]

Labor Day weekend means one thing in particular to those of us raised in proximity to Lake Erie: the Milan Melon Festival. Throughout the year, Milan is famous for being the birthplace of Thomas Alva Edison, but as the summer winds up, the area around Milan bursts into color and fragrance as the bumper crops of watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe are harvested.

RSS readers might not display the flashy Pictobrowser slide show below, so click through if you want to see us do the can-can.

Yesterday was Labor Day, and Marc, Rachel, and I stocked up like locavorean squirrels for the winter. Well, that’s what I thought the plan was. But 8 hours, 50 pounds of tomatoes, 15 […]

So, Marc aka Mental Masala and I and our friend Rachel (the Mistress of Club Grub here in the East Bay) are getting ready for canning 50 pounds of Lucero’s San Marzano and Early Girl tomatoes tomorrow, along with dill pickles, dilly beans, and bread-and-butter pickles. Seems like the perfect Labor Day activity, and I’m […]

I started by cooking the chopped red onion and the hot pepper in a bit of olive oil over low heat, letting them take their sweet time to carmelize…. Peaches and Herbs Salsa Makes 1 pint of salsa 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil 1 small red onion, sliced thin and chopped coarsely 1 hot pepper, seeded and minced 1 clove garlic, minced 1/2 tsp minced fresh basil 1/4 tsp salt 5-6 peaches, peeled, pitted, and chopped 1 1/2 c chopped tomatoes 1 tsp minced fresh mint 1/2 tsp minced fresh basil Juice from 1/2 lime In large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-low heat.