I cook because I love to eat. I garden because I love to cook.
As the summer heats up, the cucumber vines in my garden lengthen, with yellow blossoms at their ends. There are male and female flowers, the females with tiny fruit just below the petals. Over a week or two, the fruit grows, enlarging into a full …
My father cooked all manner of food when I was growing up. His baba ganouj was garlicky and smooth, a perfect dip brought to many a party. We ate his brisket, fall apart tender, every Passover. He never purchased store-bought salad dressing; a jar of …
I’ve always been an adventurous eater. From a young age I helped my father cook all manner of Chinese food and we ate homemade refried beans with tortillas for dinner twice a week. But as a kid, I was not enamored with Indian food. I …
When my wife was pregnant with our children many years ago, there were foods she would eat and those she would not. The ones she ate, she ate all the time. The dishes she would not eat, I sometimes cooked anyway as she stood in …
There are some vegetables I don’t grow in my garden. It’s not for lack of trying or because I won’t eat the result. Rather, I just can’t get them to grow. I try for a few years. Nothing. Modify my technique. Failure. Finally, I give …
I talk to my high school Biology and Environmental Science students all the time about food, cooking, and my garden. I mean not all the time; we do have other work to do. But sometimes it does overlap with the course material. For example, I …
Asparagus, a perennial that returns year after year if properly cared for, is one of my most cherished crops. Last year in late spring, when the harvest was over and the plants were maturing, sending their frilly leaves out to collect sunlight to transport food …
As my children wind their way through and eventually graduate college, moving out of the dorm into shared apartments and houses, they are starting their first kitchens. To begin with, of course, their cupboards are bare. They have neither pot nor pan, not a dish …
There is a divide among us. Nothing serious, depressing, or consequential like the political chasm we currently face, but rather a divide about how we adorn our soup. There are those among us who top our soup with crackers, croutons, and fried noodles so we …
In my youth I can’t say that I was a fan of mushrooms. I would never eat them outright. If someone insisted on a pizza with mushrooms, I would reluctantly manage, although pizza-topping mushrooms back then were mostly wet, slimy, canned things, with little to …
