Food

Thanksgiving superbowl: Plan now for pie

My aunt had a side hustle for years: She’d make pies, freeze them, and sell them to restaurants and gourmet food stores. I don’t particularly recall if the filling was great — …

Thanksgiving Superbowl: Make soup ahead to save space

  The challenge with cooking for Thanksgiving ahead of time isn’t the cooking part, it’s the storage. Just ask the spouse. The refrigerator (She still grumbles that …

Thanksgiving: The Super Bowl of meals

The spousal unit likes to remind me that Thanksgiving is my Super Bowl. Training begins about March. Menu planning. What to plant in the garden. How to source the turkey. Options, backup plans, …

You won’t roux this cream of mushroom soup

  It’s been called America’s bechamel sauce. It’s been called a gift to the busy housewife (and how sexist is that?) It’s found in recipes from beef stroganoff to …

I’m not sure this is really Italian, but I don’t care

I’m almost afraid to say I like cooking Italian. The neighborhood has such a large Italian community that I fear anything I tell people I make will be dismissed by Italian-Americans as not …

Baba ganoush: What you can do with just one eggplant

My eggplant recipes don’t scale well. And this year, that’s a problem. Eggplant parmesan requires a certain amount of eggplant. So does ratatoullie. But this year, the spousal unit …

Serious life skill: Professional-grade quesadillas

Before I became a reporter, I did an equally important job in town. I was the quesadilla chef at SUNY Cortland’s fan-favorite dining establishment, Hilltop. When you make so much of the …

Firecrackers come with a kick you can eat

I tell gardeners this all the time: Grow what you can’t get enough of. Beans suitable for drying, baking, soups and whatnot? Lots of them, because farmers at the farmers markets sell them …

Apple dumplings: A not-bogus addition to a Renn faire

Much about attending a Renaissance festival is actually pretty bogus. Fun, but bogus. Those giant turkey legs, slow-smoked over something and dipped in a tomato-based sauce? Turkey and tomatoes …

Policy based on a tomato

We were, in a way, partners in crime. Tia was a trained chef-turned-program administrator for the New York State Senate. I was a stay-at-home dad, recovering journalist and a low-level nobody in …

Now’s the best time to make the best corn chowder

My mother made the worst corn chowder. There. I said it. I know I’m supposed to wax nostalgic for Mama’s home cookin’, and in fairness, my mother did have several good recipes. …

Budget vegetarian charcuterie

I had friends stay with me over the weekend, and there’s only so many things I can cook, especially as a vegetarian. I had already cooked my signature pasta, so I thought I’d add …

Peaches: Best from the backyard

I never really had a good peach as a child, not that I knew the difference. I grew up in central New Hampshire in an area about 75 miles north of Cortland and a couple hundred miles east. My …

Dessert for the main course

A couple I know likes to indulge from time to time: Dessert for supper. When they do that, the family heads out and typically gets ice cream sundaes. Rich, decadent, sweet — I get it. …

A memory to relish

I met the Rev. Jessie Jackson for the first time when I was 18. This is about food. Trust me. The year was 1983; Jackson had visited a neighboring high school in New Hampshire on his way to …

Starting fresh with an old box of pasta

I came across a box of tri-colored pasta while rummaging through the cupboard a couple of weeks ago. Now, something that looks like that shouldn’t be buried under a thick red sauce, not even an …

Authentic Italian? Do what your family likes

I will confess that the sum total of what I know about Italian cuisine can be summed up in an exchange I once had with an Italian grandmother, whose parents had come over on the boat. …

Gazpacho: A midsummer night’s drink

In my corner of western New York, the past winter was a lukewarm and muddy season. It rained more than it snowed. The landscape resembled a muddy impressionist painting rather than a frozen …

Beef barley stew for your inner carbivore

The spousal unit is a carbivore. Potatoes, pasta, white rice — if it has so little flavor that anything dresses it up, and such a soft texture that chewing isn’t necessary, she’s on …

Herbs can bring a forest of flavors on your back deck

Nobody told me the herb was a tree. Today, the potted bay plants I bought about a decade ago for about $8 at a farmers market are better termed “saplings.” If I stripped every leaf …

Farmers markets reinvented

The Homer Regional Farmers Market has existed in many shapes and sizes before, but this summer, it will be held weekly, and it will be more than just a place to pick up some vegetables. The …

A student of the world, one dish at a time

I grew up in a community with so little cultural diversity that if you looked at it from orbit, you’d go blind. No Asian people; no Hispanic people; no Jewish people and few (if any) …

ITHACA — May brings the return of Wednesday Market at East Hill and the addition of Sunday Market at Steamboat Landing, Ithaca Farmers Market organizers have announced. Wednesdays at East …

So simple I could do it at 11

My mother would call home from work when I was 11. She had forgotten to take supper out of the freezer, and she needed me to cook. I was 11; I hadn’t learned anything about food except …

Cortland 6-year-old teaches cooking on Youtube channel

  Most 6-year-olds can’t pronounce prosciutto, let alone film a cooking video with it that garners thousands of views. But Henry Carr of Scott can. The 6-year-old braved the cold weather and rain Wednesday to film an episode of his Youtube show “Cooking with Henry,” at the Community Learning Garden, 3 South Ave., Cortland.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Next »
Currently viewing stories posted within the past 2 years.
For all older stories, please use our advanced search.