Black History Month: Tiffany Derry shows just how far hard work and talent can take you

Talent alone can take you only so far. Same thing goes for hard work. But put them together and you’re practically unstoppable. Chef Tiffany Derry, the subject of my latest USA Character Approved Blog post, proves that.

Some time ago, I went to see Anthony Bourdain do a reading from his then new book, Medium Raw. Seated next to me was a young woman very excited to be seeing him speak. We had a long wait and so struck up a conversation that took the usual “and what do you do” path. She was a student at one of the pricier private universities in Chicago. She had just switched her major to something writing related that wasn’t actually journalism plus some culinary stuff (I wept inwardly for her parents).

When I asked what she wanted to do, she pointed at Bourdain’s picture on the cover of the book I was holding and said, “What he does.” Being both a parent and a former teacher, I launched into talking about things she could do, such as starting a food blog to develop her writing chops and build a portfolio. She was polite, but less than enthusiastic. Turns out she didn’t actually want to write—she wanted to be paid to be on TV, travel to exotic places and eat cool food. You know, what Bourdain does. Only without all the years of insane long hours in the kitchen—or at a laptop, for that matter. Continue reading “Black History Month: Tiffany Derry shows just how far hard work and talent can take you” →

Globe trotting and persistence pay off: Tilapia with Miso and Scallions

Miso, mirin, rice vinegar and garlic create a flavorful Japanese-inspired marinade for mild tilapia fillets. Quickly sautéed scallions and toasted sesame seeds add a beautiful finish. Recipe below.

Food is at a particularly cool intersection these days. On one hand, we’re thinking more about how our food gets to our plates, and locally sourced ingredients are getting much deserved attention. At the same time, global influence has never been stronger in the kitchen. Home cooks everywhere have ever increasing access to flavors, ingredients and ideas from around the world.

This week’s recipe is of the global variety. It will send you on a hunt for a number of Japanese ingredients. But don’t worry—they’re readily available lots of places, some of them in supermarkets, in fact. And in the Kitchen Notes, I’ll give you some ideas for other uses for those ingredients as well as a couple of substitutes if you can’t find them. Continue reading “Globe trotting and persistence pay off: Tilapia with Miso and Scallions” →

Small Bites: A taste of NOLA in St. Louis and Black History Month cooks

Riverbend Restaurant & Bar brings New Orleans to St. Louis, and African American wine director Brian Duncan makes wine accessible, enjoyable. Both are subjects of recent USA Character Approved Blog posts.

One of my favorite passages in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the one in which Mark Twain describes St. Louis as Huck’s raft glides by at night on the Mississippi River. It’s not a long or detailed passage, but it always takes me home when I read it. I grew up in St. Louis and can tell you firsthand that the river’s influence on the city cannot be overstated.

Happily, much of the Mississippi’s influence has actually flowed upriver from places like Memphis and New Orleans. Marion and I heard our first zydeco music in St. Louis. Fernest Arceneaux and the Thunders had packed the beer garden of the Broadway Oyster Bar, and our friend Sharon, who tended bar there, called us and said, “Get down here now.” We did. And we still thank her for making that call. Continue reading “Small Bites: A taste of NOLA in St. Louis and Black History Month cooks” →

Chocolate Chunk Cherry Brownies and the evilness of squirrels

Bittersweet and white chocolate, a touch of espresso and dried cherries soaked in red wine give these brownies a nice grown-up finish. Make them ahead—they’re twice as good the next day. Recipe below.

BEFORE I EMBARK ON THE STORY OF HOW I CAME TO MAKE THESE BROWNIES, I would like to say death to all squirrels. All squirrels, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

A few weeks back, I was seized by the baking bug and to my amazement found that we actually had ingredients that would make it possible to both bake something delicious and to avoid a trip to the store. The product of that frenzy was double chocolate chunk cherry cookies, which turned out to be rather unexpectedly fiddly to make. Continue reading “Chocolate Chunk Cherry Brownies and the evilness of squirrels” →

Celebrate National Soup Month, with six delicious, savory soups

January is National Soup Month. (It’s also National Blood Donor Month, but I’ll leave that topic to the Twilight bloggers.) Here are a half dozen soup recipes from the Blue Kitchen archives—and from fellow bloggers.

My first memory of soup is when I was seven. My mom, my baby brother and I had just come to stay with my grandmother in St. Louis. It was December, and we were arriving from Southern California; the snow outside the train window as we pulled into Union Station was the first I remembered seeing. My grandmother had a big pot of vegetable soup on the stove—its aroma filled her apartment as we walked in.

This sounds like epiphany time for someone who loves food as much as I do, doesn’t it? It wasn’t. To my limited, suspicious seven-year-old palate, the soup was a vegetable-filled nightmare. I fished out the chewy meat bites, probably short ribs, and had visions of starving to death if we stayed at my grandmother’s very long. Continue reading “Celebrate National Soup Month, with six delicious, savory soups” →

Berry, beery satisfying: Beef Pot Roast with Beer and Juniper Berries

Flavorful, inexpensive beef chuck roast, braised for hours in a low oven with beer, juniper berries, onion, garlic, potatoes and carrots, is the very definition of comfort food on a winter evening. Recipe below.

Beef Pot Roast with Beer and Juniper Berries

WHEN THE FIRST REAL SNOWSTORM OF THE SEASON IS PREDICTED, most people stock up on sidewalk salt. I bought a chuck roast.

The snow began falling in the morning, not heavy but persistent. I happened to be working from home, and I watched the snow coating first the lawns, trees and bushes, then the sidewalks and the street outside the study window. I also kept an impatient eye on the clock, eager to start cooking our first pot roast of the year. Continue reading “Berry, beery satisfying: Beef Pot Roast with Beer and Juniper Berries” →

Fast food fast tracks Indian cuisine to mainstream

In my latest USA Character Approved Blog post, a bevy of new Indian fast food restaurants reflects the mainstreaming of food from the Subcontinent here.

Fast food gets a bad rap, often for good reason. But something it does well, I think, is spot culinary cultural trends and help make them mainstream. In many cases, it even speeds them along.

One of the latest cuisines getting the fast food fast track treatment is Indian food. Living in Chicago, we’re blessed with lots of good options for Indian food, especially along Devon Avenue. The many restaurants along the crowded street are stuffed with Indian and Pakistani immigrants as well as growing numbers of adventurous Westerners. But dinners there are often protracted affairs, and for the uninitiated, the menus can be daunting. Continue reading “Fast food fast tracks Indian cuisine to mainstream” →

One-pan impromptu in the key of winter: Pork Chops with Chickpeas, Spinach and Cumin

Chickpeas and spinach bring big health benefits to this hearty one-pan meal. Cumin, chili powder, garlic and onion bring big flavor. Recipe below.

This meal wasn’t going to be a post. It was just meant to be dinner. But suddenly, the kitchen was smelling heavenly (assuming there’s cumin in heaven, and I certainly hope so). And when I served the chops and spooned the chickpea spinach mixture next to them, the plates looked really inviting. So before cutting into my chop, I had Marion taste hers. She smiled and nodded, and here we are.

This particular dish came together because we’ve been eating too much chicken. We love chicken, but even for us, there’s been a lot of it. So when I saw a nice looking pair of pork chops in the grocery store, I grabbed them. My first thought for sides were mashed potatoes and a salad, quick and easy. But we’ve been doing those a lot lately too. Continue reading “One-pan impromptu in the key of winter: Pork Chops with Chickpeas, Spinach and Cumin” →

Bake in it, serve in it, then bury it in the yard: Biodegradable, compostable bakeware

Biosphere Industries and its biodegradable, compostable bakeware and serveware made from tapioca are the subject of my latest post on the USA Character Approved Blog.

For having such a tiny garden plot, we compost a lot. (And by we, I mean Marion, of course, the same we who does our gardening.) So when we started seeing compostable “plastic” drinking cups made from corn in some of our favorite takeout places, we got excited. Until we read the fine print. Turns out they take up to 180 days to compost in commercial composting facilities; try composting them in a home system, and they can take a year or more.

Not so with the bakeware, plates and other serving pieces from Biosphere Industries. Introduced last summer, their tapioca-based pie pans, muffin trays and other containers compost in just 10 days in commercial facilities. Continue reading “Bake in it, serve in it, then bury it in the yard: Biodegradable, compostable bakeware” →

Sweet, savory, quick, delicious: Sweet Potato Sage Pasta with Chicken

A handful of fresh ingredients—sweet potato, sage, onion, garlic and chicken—make a sweet/savory pasta dish that’s weeknight quick. Recipe below.

With holiday excesses behind us, it’s good to get back to quick, simple, everyday cooking. This dish is one of my favorite examples of that kind of cooking, in that involves fresh ingredients, using up leftovers and unexpected synapses firing.

One thing I’ve noticed in writing about food for the past five years or so is that it makes me think about food, a lot. Sometimes it seems that everything I see or read or hear or smell or taste has the potential to inspire some cooking idea. Continue reading “Sweet, savory, quick, delicious: Sweet Potato Sage Pasta with Chicken” →