• Food Stories

    Making a Splash with Fish Tacos

    My family has some big fans of fish tacos. I asked around: What makes a good one? It starts with fresh whitefish – that’s unanimous – and a big dollop of lime sauce. Some prefer the crunch of fresh chopped…

  • Food Stories

    Rethinking Thanksgiving Turkey

    As we come upon Thanksgiving, I find myself asking: “Why turkey?” After all, the traditional feast was built around mythology; authentic records don’t exist. Historians actually surmise that the 1621 colonists viewed the large birds as hard to prepare. Hmmm.…

  • Food Stories

    C Is for Chilly – and Chowder

    It’s chowder season here in New England. After years of cooking here, I’ve come to appreciate our local specialty. The Oxford Companion to Food points out that chowder was first cooked up in the early 1700s and is likely derived…

  • Travel Stories

    Gone Fishin’

    Getting fresh fish in north central Illinois in the mid-1950s was difficult. But late May/early June usually marked the time of year when the family would travel to northern Wisconsin on a fishing trip. If the fishing was good, that…

  • Food Stories

    Simple and Quick Go-To Recipes

    I’m guessing that many of us are feeling a little burned out on cooking, and there are evenings when we just want an easy menu that will satisfy the family. I’ve felt that way more than once over the past…

  • Food Stories

    Bounty from Sea to Shining Sea

    Are you a pescatarian? That’s a person who adds fish and seafood and sometimes eggs to a vegetarian diet. As for me, my background put me on a trajectory of meat and potatoes. But that’s because the 1950s logistical supply…