• Food Stories

    Making Hash Out of Holiday Dinners

    We’re getting to the end of the festive holiday meals, and the leftovers are piling up. Now’s the time to think about that old standby: hash. All those potatoes, vegetables, and that large hunk of meat are just asking to…

  • Food Stories

    Stewing About the Cold Weather

    This time of year, most of us start thinking about a stew. It’s cold and rainy outside, we can’t go anywhere, and we’re yearning for a simple, satisfying meal. A good stew has that satisfying warmth that fits the bill.…

  • Food Stories

    Have a (Meat) Ball

    When I say “meatball,” what comes to mind? I suspect for most of us, it’s that family staple, good old Italian-American spaghetti with meatballs and red sauce. Culturally, my history with meatballs varies from my New England neighbors. In my…

  • Food Stories

    Pass the Gravy, Please!

    When I asked my friend Tom about his favorite childhood food memory, the reply was swift and certain: bread and gravy. His mother was a master cook, he said, with 200 cookbooks and three linear feet of 4-by-6-inch recipe cards.…

  • Food Stories

    Ditch the Stove

    When it’s been hot for a long stretch, you’re not only tired of cooking over a stove; you’re also getting a little tired of those salads. Now what? To the rescue! Have you thought about a slow cooker, Crock-Pot, or…

  • Farm Stories

    A Guy’s Gotta Eat!

    My mother was a farm wife on a 400-acre farm in northern Illinois in the 1950s. She could feed a hungry crew during the harvest and could help in the fields, when necessary. This is the environment in which she…