DIGEST: Boston Globe Food Section

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Boston Globe – June 14, 2006

The caveman grilleth

You can't beat ribs, says barbecue guru Steven Raichlen

By Joe Yonan, Globe Staff

Meat on the bone and over (or at least next to) the fire: It doesn't get any more old-school than that, as barbecue guru Steven Raichlen knows so well. Man's discovery of cooking led to nutritional -- and therefore evolutionary -- advantages, even the development of speech and the expansion of the brain. ``As I like to say, barbecue began civilization," he quips.

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Serendipity leads to a splendid salad

By Lisa Zwirn, Globe Correspondent

As the tale goes, in 1937, Robert Cobb, then owner of the popular Hollywood hangout the Brown Derby, headed for his restaurant kitchen late one night looking for a snack. He found iceberg lettuce, romaine and watercress leaves, ripe avocado, juicy tomatoes, cooked chicken breast, a hard-cooked egg, creamy Roquefort, and salad dressing. He grabbed some bacon from a busy chef and started chopping. A friend, Sid Grauman, of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, joined him for the midnight meal. Soon after, Grauman returned to the restaurant and requested ``Cobb salad."

Recipe:

* Cobb salad

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Finding the perfect balance

To assemble a terrific cornbread, you need two mixing bowls, one whisk, a wooden spoon, and an 8-inch square baking pan -- the kind of kitchen tools even poorly equipped summer cottages have. But to find a recipe that's moist and neither too sweet nor too cakey is another matter. That's probably why mixes are popular.

Recipe:

* Cornbread

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In the market: Slab bacon

What it is, how to use it, and where its' good.

Recipe:

* Breakfast BLT

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Recipes:

* "Mechoui" of lamb ribs

* Buccaneer baby backs

* Harissa

* Rumbullion barbecue sauce

[TPO]

Boston Globe – June 28, 2006

Land of the freeze

Independent shops help make New England one of America's hotbeds of homemade ice cream

By Joe Yonan, Globe Staff

Those independent makers represent dairy farmers whose cows are in the barn, pastry chefs who don't milk their own Holsteins but make just about everything else, and dogged business owners who are finding unique (and sometimes secret) flavor sources. All of that is in service of one goal: concocting the sort of frozen dessert that has been making people grin since Alexander the Great ate snow with honey and nectar.

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A slice of flavor, without the tears

Green onions look like scallions on steroids. The long green ends are thick, the white bulbs plump enough so at first glance you think they're baby leeks. But these slender green onions -- also called spring onions and salad onions -- don't have the robust taste of leeks, the bite of scallions, or the crying quality of real onions.

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Fill in the blanc with summer white

Sauvignon blanc is often recommended as an ideal summer sip, but anyone who has tasted around the category knows that the regional and stylistic variations involved can make buying experience confusing. Personae assumed by this shifty varietal include the minerally, razor-keen French version, the grapefruit-and-gooseberry jazzed New Zealander, and the roly-poly, soft-focus Californian. Outsized flavors and wild aromatics are par for the course here -- especially under New World labels.

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Vermont cheddar cheese

What it is, how to use it, and where to buy it.

Recipe:

* Open-faced oven-grilled ham and cheese sandwich

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Former pastry chef has ice cream down cold

By T. Susan Chang, Globe Correspondent

With five dessert books, each more friendly to a home cook's sweet tooth than the last, Emily Luchetti is one of the stars in the American pastry firmament. So it's ample cause for celebration that Luchetti has turned her talents to ice cream.

Recipe:

Lime ice cream with sugared mint leaves and blueberries

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Boston Globe – July 5, 2006

Farm to Table: Market grows for milder-tasting offshoot of garlic crop

Garlic scapes, those curly stalks that shoot out of garlic plants before flowering, used to be something that growers would discard after cutting them off to encourage bulb growth. That is, until farmers who enjoyed their flavor -- garlic without the typical bite -- started testing to see if market customers might buy them.

Recipe:

* Garlic scape pesto

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Pantry is best friend of last-minute hosts

By Amy Graves, Globe Correspondent

``Give me 30 minutes and I can do anything," says Erin Reilly. ``I am the quintessential last-minute entertainer."

Recipes:

* Spicy sauteed shrimp

* Fallen chocolate cakes

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In the Market: Soft shell crabs

What they are, how to use them, and where to buy them.

Recipe:

* Sauteed soft shells with mesclun salad

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They're just right with Greek cheese

By Lisa Zwirn, Globe Correspondent

Ronald and Sheree Cardoos import Greek cheeses, including feta, kasseri, manouri, and halloumi (the last made in Cyprus). Finding a cracker to sell with their line meant scouring small markets and bakeries in Greece. Nothing struck them as quite right until they visited Crete. There they found crisp little toasts, handmade with the island's renowned olive oil and flour from a local mill.

Recipes:

* Roasted feta

* Tomato and feta salad

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Boston Globe – July 12, 2006

Farm to Table: In summer salads, you can't beat these earthy vegetables

Burgundy beets are so intensely colored they can stain your hands, your counters, and any food they come in contact with. These humble roots, long relegated to Eastern European borscht -- a hot meaty pot in the winter, and cold clear broth in summer -- became snazzy additions to contemporary salads.

Recipe:

* Roasted beets with sauteed greens

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Southern comfort

On a N.H. farm, three generations do home cooking Carolina-style

By Jonathan Levitt, Globe Correspondent

It's late on a rainy Friday afternoon, and Deb Pettengill is making supper. She stands over an old Garland range, blond hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, moving around cast iron pans and cooking for a crowd with the nonchalance of someone whipping up morning eggs. As usual, real Southern cooking is on the menu: country-style steak, buttermilk biscuits, pan-fried okra, pokeweed, tomato and melon salad, and peach cobbler.

Recipes:

* Peach cobbler

* Buttermilk biscuits

* Country-style steak in gravy

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A new diet keeps you close to home

By Cathy Huyghe, Globe Correspondent

It sounds like a nice idea: For one year, eat only those foods that have been grown or produced within 100 miles of home.

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Sojji is a sweet treat fit for a bridegroom

By Visi Tilak, Globe Correspondent

Even in today's modern world, prospective Indian bridegrooms might visit the home of a potential bride for what is called a ``bride - seeing ceremony." As if the opportunities for awkwardness weren't enough, many family members are present at the bride - seeing afternoon. The bride and the bridegroom are both being scrutinized by aunts, uncles, siblings, and cousins.

Recipe:

* Sojji

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In the Market: All-beef hot dogs

What they are, how to use them, and where they're good.

Recipe:

* Chili dogs

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Have more fun with treat-filled blondies

In baking, ingredients can appear in the most unexpected of places. Candy, for instance, usually relegated to a crystal bowl on the coffee table, becomes the absolutely frivolous component of a blond brownie, also known as a blondie.

Recipe:

* Minty squares

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Recipes:

* Sauteed spinach with scallions and cream

* Monkfish chowder with yellow potatoes

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Boston Globe – July 19, 2006

Dark greens that can make a salad shine

Arugula, with its distinctive peppery bite, is so popular right now that you have to get to some markets early to snag any. One type is sylvetta, also called wild arugula, a wisp of a green that packs a lot of flavor. (It would also be a good garnish for grilled steak.) The leaves of other varieties are fuller but more delicate than leaf lettuce.

Recipe:

* Mustardy vinaigrette

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Making a splash

Amanda Lydon and Gabriel Frasca take the helm at Straight Wharf

NANTUCKET -- Amanda Lydon drops blocks of cream cheese into a giant Hobart mixer, peels and chops red onion, and flakes smoked bluefish into the bowl for pate. She points out a window to the water's edge, where fisherman catch striped bass off the wharf that gives this storied restaurant its name.

* Smoked bluefish pate

* Watermelon gazpacho

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The food that keeps the wheels spinning

By Bonnie DeSimone, Globe Correspondent

The 65-year-old Kunz prepares all the meals for the Switzerland-based Phonak cycling team led by Floyd Landis, who has the best chance of any American rider to succeed Lance Armstrong as Tour de France winner this year. In yesterday's stage, which began a three-day climb through the Alps, Landis reclaimed the leader's yellow jersey. The tour began in Strasbourg July 1 and will finish in Paris July 23.

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Roaring forties blue cheese

Diners who read the phrase ``Roaring Forties" on a menu might think: Wasn't it the '20s that roared, with flappers and speakeasies and gangsters and jazz? In the United States, that's certainly the case, but in Australia, home of Roaring Forties Blue Cheese, the reference is to a longitude, not a decade.

Recipe:

* Salad with walnuts and blue cheese

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Stone fruits

What they are, where to find them, and how to use them.

Recipes

* Peach-nectarine-plum pie with crisp topping

* Old-fashioned lattice-topped cherry pie

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Recipes:

* Baked eggs with shrimp and capers

* Rustic summer berry croustade

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Produce two ways: exotic and wholesome

By T. Susan Chang, Globe Correspondent

``Melissa's Great Book of Produce" takes its name from Melissa's/World Variety Produce, the Los Angeles-based distributor whose specialty fruits and vegetables have helped redefine the country's culinary landscape. That transformation includes radicchio and lemongrass in the 1980s, followed by Mission figs, celery root, microgreens, and colored beets.

Recipes:

* Cabbage salad with lime-cilantro vinaigrette

* Spicy three-cabbage slaw

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Cookbook author's palate is right at home in Maine

By Jonathan Levitt, Globe Correspondent

Dojny, whose most recent book is ``Dishing Up Maine," likes to say that she moved here for the food. And in her volume, she covers it all: clam shacks and lobster pounds, small farms, wild seafood and aquaculture, farmers' markets, public suppers, fine dining temples , and quirky little joints. In short, all the things that make the food scene in Maine so alluring.

Recipe:

* Mussel chowder with colorful vegetables

[TPO]

Boston Globe – July 26, 2006

Are those matzo balls in my vindaloo?

A Hudson wedding unites a couple and their Indian and Jewish traditions

By Alison Arnett, Globe Staff

For this multicultural affair, stretching over two days (the night before the wedding, there was a henna and music party), they have to feed many guests -- 200 to 300. So the bride's mother, Geeta, and father, Birendra, both physicians who live in Hudson, did what many Indian families do: They pulled out all the stops and called in Vinod Kapoor.

Photos from the wedding, including the food

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Locally grown English cucumbers are a fresh option

Farmer Richard Rosenburgh started growing the almost-seedless, crisp, and thin-skinned cucumbers this year. An unheated greenhouse protects them from insects and severe cold and heat. Customers are snapping them up, he says, often reaching for the curly ones rather than the straight model he's aiming for.

Recipe:

* Fattoush

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SHORT CUTS

* Thai Iced Tea

* Bread, stuff

* Treats for the mom-to-be

* Dishes for 'meez' and you

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Movement toward more sustainable food systems is growing

By Emily Shartin, Globe Staff

By design, it would be a meal made entirely of local ingredients -- no produce shipped from California, no meats trucked in from a factory farm. For Keith, it is not just a matter of good food, but also a matter of principle. ``I like knowing that I'm supporting the local economy and not corporate America," she says.

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Pack up your shiraz for the season

How is it that people who know better than to wear tweeds in July can't seem to carry the concept over to choosing a summer-weight red wine? We're not sure, but we've learned to dread the encounter with the outsize zinfandel, beefy shiraz, or fur-bearing cabernet at our neighbors' backyard barbecues.

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In the Market: Carrots

Recipe:

* Risotto with summer carrots, thyme, and brown butter

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Trim fat and calories,but retain the flavor

Most chowders rely on a base of heavy cream and bacon for their rich flavor and creamy texture. Nothing wrong with that -- unless you're among the many trying to cut fat and calories here and there.

Recipe:

* Light corn chowder with fresh basil

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Boston Globe – August 2, 2006

Baking with Julia

What does a novelist who writes about food create in her own kitchen?

By Joe Yonan, Globe Staff

You'd think that a request to spend a day baking with novelist Julia Glass would be met with a plan for coconut cake. That dessert drives the plot of this food-obsessed author's new book, ``The Whole World Over." And it was her own memory of a delectable coconut cake in Greenwich Village that gave her the idea to use the confection as a catalyst.

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This year they're harder to find, but better than ever

The local blueberry crop that wasn't wiped out by strong spring storms has produced berries so large and plump you have to tell yourself not to pluck them off the tops of the pints at farms and markets.

Recipe:

* Blueberry shortcake

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SHORT ORDERS

* Turkey dinners, straight from the farm

* Barbecue without borders

* Meet the new Necco

* A quick trip to Indonesia

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Summer fruit's new best friend

Crisply tender and melting, these cookies are just what you want to serve alongside summer fruit salad or ice cream, or to have on hand for weekend guests.

Recipe:

* Sugar cookies

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These crabs are the pick of the ocean

By Jonathan Levitt, Globe Correspondent

SOUTH BLUE HILL, Maine -- The Happy Crab gang works out of a blue shed, nestled in the woods, halfway up a long dirt road, in this little town on the coast. Wearing hairnets and sleeveless shirts, they sit around the table cracking claws and legs and scooping the body meat out of topsy-turvy piles of brick - colored sand crabs.

Recipes:

* Crab rolls

* Crab cakes

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In the Market: Clams

What they are, how to use them, and where to buy them.

Recipe:

* Broiled stuffed clams

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She's a caterer, at least until college starts

By Jennifer Wolcott, Globe Correspondent

This enterprising 18-year-old, a member of the 2006 graduating class of Lincoln - Sudbury Regional High School, practically went to work the day she got her diploma. Known among family and friends for her flair at the stove, she was hired by a fellow senior to help cater his graduation party for 150. She also catered her own graduation party. Then the phone at Ali's Catering Co. started ringing.

Recipe:

* Chicken piccata

[TPO]

Boston Globe – August 9, 2006

Summer at its most sumptuous

By Alison Arnett, Globe Staff

With their intense sweetness and the voluptuous way they feel in your mouth, melons are the glamour queens of the fruit family. And August is the month when they strut their stuff. Scoop up a spoonful of bright orange cantaloupe and let the flesh slide against your tongue. A slice of honeydew is a pure hit of sugar that matches its creamy texture. The crisp, cold flesh of a perfect watermelon recalls all the best summer moments.

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SHORT ORDERS

* Saintly sauce

* Lucky duck

* Guten taste

* Homemade, but not by you

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They are sweet in a saute or a soup

You might think that zucchini is such an ordinary vegetable that it's hard to single out for anyparticularly alluring qualities, but then you probably haven't eaten slender, fresh-picked 8-inchzucchini. The seeds are hardly developed and the skin is tender and quite firm. In the pot they turn quite sweet.

Recipe:

* Zucchini and basil soup

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Personal watermelons

What they are, where to find them, and how to use them.

Recipe:

* Watermelon-blueberry coolers

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From that first crop of garlic, Pleasant Lake Farm grew

By Diana Kuan, Globe Correspondent

Karen Lee had suffered through enough early morning drives from Cape Cod to Reading to realize she couldn't spend the rest of her life as a leadership consultant in the corporate world. In late 2002, during one of her 100-mile commutes, she caught a story on National Public Radio about niche farming. She was intrigued. All she needed was arable land, she figured, which she already had, and a little perseverance.

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A barbecue sauce that runs in the family

By Emily Schwab, Globe Correspondent

When Annye Anderson makes barbecue sauce, she is drawing on decades of experience. In Memphis, Tenn., where she was raised during the Depression. Miss Anderson, as she likes to be called, watched her mother prepare the sauce for her restaurant customers. At home, her mother canned 500 jars a year of foods such as turnip greens, but ``her barbecue sauce was the zenith," says Anderson, who spent her childhood watching spices tumbling into the pot -- ``a pinch of this, a pinch of that," as she describes it.

[TPO]

Boston Globe – August 23, 2006

You say tomatoes

From heirlooms to beefsteaks, anyway you slice them, they spell August

By You say tomatoes, Globe Staff

No other summer crop is as beloved as a tomato. You can tell by the lines that form at farmers' markets where the best heirlooms are offered.

Recipe:

* Heirloom tomato salad with corn and basil vinaigrette

For more information:

* Handle with care

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Lime rickeys: summer in a glass

By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff

There are many summer foods -- watermelon, corn on the cob, hot dogs -- but not many summer beverages. Iced tea, lemonade, soda pop (served, of course, in sweat-dripping bottles), all long ago lost any solely seasonal association. People drink them year-round. But for a liquid taste of summer, there's no drink quite like the lime rickey and its several variants, most notably the raspberry lime rickey.

For more information:

* Rickey roll call

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SHORT ORDERS

* Get your fill of flatbread

* Custard comes to town

* Into the mix

* A juice revival

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The season is short but sweet (and tart)

The season for some farmers' market fruit is so short, and the fruit so delicious on its own, that it may seem counterintuitive to do anything with it besides devour it out of hand. That's the case with yellow plums like the Shiro variety found at tables run by Kimball Fruit Farm of Pepperell and others.

Recipe:

* Yellow plum sorbet

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Local peaches

What they are, how to use them, and where to find them.

Recipe:

* Peach crisp

Edited August 29, 2006 by TPO (log)

[TPO]

Boston Globe – September 6, 2006

The best thing since sliced bread

New shop meets needs of sandwich aficionados

By Alison Arnett, Globe Staff

The business has latched onto a sandwich revival. Chains such as Cosi and Au Bon Pain in recent years have started offering upscale versions of the deli and coffee shop staples; artisanal bread and quality ingredients appealed to lunchers who eschewed sit-down restaurants but wanted something more than fast food.

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Competition cooks up at a 4-H county fair

Food and Fun Club members put their kitchen skills to the test

By Debra Samuels, Globe Correspondent

It's good old-fashioned fun, the 4-H way, and the children are learning it from their mother, a freelance computer programmer who leads the 12-member Food and Fun Club in her spare time. Donahue was an active 4-H - er growing up in Woburn, and she relishes the chance to pass on the program's philosophy of ``learning by doing" to her children and club members.

Recipes:

* Chocolate peanut butter munchies

* Sweet pickle relish

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Crudités add a crunch

By Lise Stern, Globe Correspondent

The word brings to mind a platter full of carrot and celery sticks, perhaps with an onion dip in the middle. Bissonnette's take is in a different category altogether. 

Recipe:

* Crudités

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Beef is thin but flavor is robust

London broil is not a specific cut of beef, but a generic term for a large, flat cut, usually top round, that is often grilled or broiled and served medium rare or rare. This inexpensive cut is flavorful, but tough, and should be sliced thin so it is not too chewy.

Recipe:

* London broil with spicy roasted salsa

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Supper for a warm evening

September weather can be fickle, changing from cool to almost-summery heat overnight. So it's a good idea to have a recipe or two for those days when we fling open the windows and maybe even plan to eat al fresco.

Recipe:

* Cold sesame chicken

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Boston Globe – September 13, 2006

A market becomes a meeting place

Farmers and neighbors gather in Brattleboro

By Jonathan Levitt, Globe Correspondent

Markets are now almost as common here as Dunkin ' Donuts. They have become the place where the community gathers, neighbors greet one another, everyone catches up on the latest news in town. They're the place where we get to buy food right from the growers, and we learn about new foods, and how the season has been.

Recipe:

* Meat-stuffed peppers

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Wings: the ultimate finger food

By Kristina Nies, Globe Correspondent

As an appetizer or study-break finger food, wings are quick, cheap, and available just about everywhere beer is on tap. Some establishments have taken the traditional recipe and fiddled with it. Now you can even order boneless wings on a stick.

Recipe:

* Buffalo wings

For more information:

* Where the wings are

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Growing ginger adds snap to this NE farm

By Emily Schwab, Globe Correspondent

The greenhouse on a hillside just outside the center of Amherst is one of the few filled with ginger plants. Yes, ginger -- something more common in tropical climes like Hawaii, where much of the domestic crop is grown (though in fields, not greenhouses). In this spot, Bahret and her business partner, Casey Steinberg, run their farm on land and greenhouse space they rent from Open Field Foundation.

Recipes:

* Gingery sugar snaps

* Fresh ginger tea

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Add grains of common sense to dinner

By Lisa Zwirn, Globe Correspondent

But with all the benefits of these chewier, healthier grains, you might want to take the chance. Introduce them gradually. Try mixing regular and whole wheat pasta in the cooking pot, serve brown rice instead of white with stir-fries, and whip up a creamy risotto from barley instead of Arborio rice.

Recipe:

* Grilled vegetable and barley salad

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This Vermont vacation revolves around cooking

By Jessica Thomson, Globe Correspondent

Krasner, an award-winning cookbook author (``The Flavor of Oil" and ``Kitchens for Cooks") and kitchen designer, has just transformed her 18th-century Vermont barn into a luxury vacation spot. For a few weeks each spring and fall, she offers classes for people who want nothing more than to spend the better part of a week chopping, tasting, eating, and talking about food.

Recipe:

* Arugula and pear salad with mascarpone and toasted walnuts

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For better or worse, not like Mom used to make

By T. Susan Chang, Globe Correspondent

Revioew of:

Stonewall Kitchen Favorites: Delicious Recipes to Share With Family and Friends Every Day, By Jonathan King, Jim Stott, and Kathy Gunst, Clarkson Potter, 288 pp., $32.50

Recipe:

* Bacon & chive biscuits

[TPO]

Boston Globe – September 20, 2006

In search of a childhood memory

Lydia Shire is on a mission to re-create Bailey's butterscotch sauce

By Alison Arnett, Globe Staff

Shire, owner of Locke-Ober, the former Biba, and other restaurants, and a chef who enjoys preparing luxurious ingredients for rarefied tastes, is intent on using her culinary magic on something common enough to have appeared in a 19th-century cookbook. She is trying to re - create a memory: Bailey's butterscotch sauce from the old Boston ice cream shops. ``Nothing ever compared to Bailey's butterscotch," says the chef.

To share your memories or post a recipe:

* Do you remember Bailey's?

Recipe:

* Butterscotch sauce

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Whatever the tradition, a sweet new year

By Lisa Zwirn, Globe Correspondent

Ella Komar is familiar with the traditional Rosh Hashana foods served on both Ashkenazi and Sephardic tables. When she was a child, her family immigrated from Russia to Israel and most holiday dinners, including the Jewish New Year, reflected her mother's Russian heritage. But Komar was especially fascinated with the Sephardic households of her Israeli neighbors and friends.

Recipe:

* Moroccan fish and vegetable casserole ( chraime )

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Following outbreak, spinach is off the menu

By Alison Arnett, Globe Staff

Restaurants, produce markets, and grocery stores became a little less green late last week, within hours of the Food and Drug Administration's nationwide alert of an E coli strain found in bagged spinach and the news that a Wisconsin woman died and more than 130 people in 21 states became ill.

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Sweeten the year

Joan Rachlin of Brookline makes her mother-in-law's honey cake for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year that begins Friday at sundown. ``The cake reflects the humbleness and simplicity of the old country," says Rachlin. `` We eat it and we love it."

Recipe:

* Honey cake

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Fresh sardines

The tiny silvery fish have become popular on small plates and bar menus around Boston, and Les Zygomates' version sells well at both bar and table. McCullough pairs the rich, strong sardines with an assertive black olive tapenade and peppery watercress.

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When life gives you apples, make pie

By Noreen Cargill, Globe Correspondent

Blowtorch in hand, Nick Cowles stands ready to start up his oven. It's a giant thing, and it's about to be filled with 36 pies. Each is made with apples from Cowles's orchard, along with Vermont maple syrup, sealed inside crisp, buttery pastry -- just like any grandma might make. But that's where any comparison with grandma ends.

Recipe:

* Apple pie

[orangeman747]

The Boston Globe – July 21, 2004 

Reaching the freezing point

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The caterers are kids

Alex Simon and Will Levitt began their business when they were 13

By Andrea Pyenson, Globe Correspondent 

There aren’t many adults that could handle the pressures of  catering business. But these talented kids are doing just fine.

For Will Levitt and Alex Simon, co-executive chefs of W&A Caterers, the road from experimental home cooks to budding professionals was not all that long. The two started cooking together about five summers ago, when their families rented a house in France. They were both 9 years old.

For the shortcakes

For the garnish

←

I know that this post is really old... but I am Will Levitt, and I thought that it was really cool that you have put this up here. Alex and I, 2 years later, still own the catering business. Much of the article still stands true to what our business is today (though hopefully we've become better chefs!). If you want, please check out our website at www.wacatering.netfirms.com.

[TPO]

Boston Globe – September 27, 2006

At Kripalu, they really know how to stretch a meal

By Cathy Huyghe, Globe Correspondent

In the kitchen at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, Howard, the executive chef, and Bittman, the lunch sous chef, work together in an unusual way. Howard runs her kitchen the way the center as a whole works. No one on staff claims to have the answer, but everyone will encourage you.

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A sicilian antipasto

At the Becchina family farm in western Sicily, where fall is spent growing, picking, and pressing olives for Olio Verde olive oil, the garden overflows with eggplants, squash, zucchini, and more. The abundance propels people like Enza Titone, the Becchina family cook, into harvesting hyperdrive.

Recipe:

* Marinated zucchini slices

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Its topping makes it tops

Moist and ultra-buttery, a coffee cake cut into ample squares or thick fingers is a luscious addition to the breakfast or break the fast table at Yom Kippur, equally welcome at a celebratory meal or as a treat for weekend guests.

Recipe:

* Cinnamon coffee cake

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SALT:

* Dessert doesn't have to be simply sweet

* There's a process to reduction

* Some experimentation adds flavor to specialty seasonings

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Slow and spicy wins the raves

By Jane Dornbusch, Globe Correspondent

Isatou Jack has worn many hats in her life -- farmer, teacher, and doctoral student among them -- but her favorite role may be cook. ``I enjoy cooking," says the 49-year-old native of Gambia. ``I don't find it a chore; it's therapy. When I'm stressed, I go into the kitchen and create."

Recipe:

* Domoda (Gambian peanut stew)

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Boston Globe – October 4, 2006

They herd it through the grapevine

Three companies helm a local movement back to distributing boutique wines

By Stephen Meuse, Globe Correspondent

Few casual wine drinkers know anything about the industry that delivers their bottle of chardonnay, or care to. But there's one trend that threatens to diminish the variety and quality of wines consumers have access to.

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This salad balances flavors and hues

"Beets are one of those vegetables you can do just about anything to," says chef Eric Bogardus of Vox Populi. "You can shave them raw and eat them chilled, you can poach them, you can roast them. Plus you can get chioggias, the red and white candy-striped beets."

Recipe:

* Salt-roasted beets

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Oktoberfest brings in the season

By Ann Cortissoz, Globe Staff

Admit it: You hear the word Oktoberfest and what comes to mind are images of blond Frauleins wearing dirndls, hair done up in Princess Leia rolls, dancing through tents of revelers with steins of foaming beer in hand to the beat of an oompah band. Well, OK, there is all of that at the yearly celebration in Munich, but let's focus on the really important part of the picture -- the beer.

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A crowd pleaser

When you have a home-cooked meal in mind but the family is clamoring for pizza -- or rather, pizzas: one with sausage, one extra cheese, one peppers and onions -- there is a solution. Make calzones.

* Swiss chard and mozzarella calzones

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They re-create recipes from history

By Cathy Huyghe, Globe Correspondent

What the sisters are looking for among all these handwritten pages are recipes. One might be written on the back of a theater party invitation, or in the margins of a wartime love letter.

Recipes:

* Mrs. Fleisher's almond cake

* Chocolate graham toffee fingers

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Preserving recipes from Nana's kitchen

By Jane Dornbusch, Globe Correspondent

here's at least one in every family: Nana's baked ziti, Bubbe's chicken soup, or Oma's stollen. It's grandma's special recipe, the one that makes family celebrations complete, and it's always been entrusted to an aunt or a sister or a cousin for safekeeping.

Recipe:

* Marinara sauce

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Boston Globe – October 11, 2006

Fasting and feasting

A meal with family and friends is the traditional end to the day during Ramadan

By Omar Sacirbey, Globe Correspondent

Some dozen family members and friends are huddled around a small television watching a home video of a religious festival in Gambia's capital, Banjul , where Joof was born. In the kitchen from which she runs her nascent catering business Joof is orchestrating an elaborate iftar, the meal with which Muslims break their daily fast during the month of Ramadan.

Recipes:

* Fish benechin

* Red lentil soup

* Sheer khurma

* Fruit chaat

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He's in the optimistic foodie camp

By Alison Arnett, Globe Staff

David Kamp's lively assessment of how far we've come as food mavens and who got us here in ``The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation," stands out from a sea of issue-oriented books written in the last few years. Instead of doom and gloom, Kamp is optimistic: about fast food, rising obesity, and encroaching industrialized food. He resolutely tells us that the glass half full.

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Jambalaya: Something to stew over

Johnny Levins loves big flavors and rustic foods. No dish in his repertoire represents this better than jambalaya. It reminds the Nevis-born chef of his mother's pepper pot, a Caribbean one-pot meal in which vegetables, meats, and spices -- essentially whatever is on hand -- are cooked together, so the flavors meld. ``With Caribbean cooking, it's all about the spices," says Levins.

Recipe:

* Jambalaya

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Recipe:

* Creamy fiddleheads and mushrooms

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Chock full of chewy charm

Every household needs a favorite cookie - jar recipe, something the family baker becomes known for. It should be a moist, crunchy, tender, ostentatious cookie that everyone loves.

Recipe:

* Loaded butter cookies with chocolate, fruit , and nuts

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Recipe:

* Herbed oven fries

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Sushi at home

Not too long ago, a child would cry ``yuck" at the thought of eating seaweed. But that isn't the case anymore. Even kids are stretching their palates as they watch their parents order sushi-to-go several nights a week. Perhaps this moment in our culture will be remembered by grammar-school kids munching on vinegar-seasoned Japanese rice rolled with steamed carrot sticks inside sheets of seaweed.

Recipe:

* Roll-your-own sushi

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Boston Globe – October 18, 2006

Back for seconds

Meet the contestants who will heat up another season of 'Top Chef'

By Devra First, Globe Staff

Tonight, Bravo's cooking competition/reality show ``Top Chef" returns to the air. The first season was jam-packed with back stabbing, name calling, emotional hissy fits, and, amid it all, creative cooking. So what will the second season offer to top that?

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Simple dough is easy as pie

Most cooks don't feel nervous about mixing the dough. The problem comes when it's time to roll out. Dough that sticks to the counter and tears can indeed be very frustrating.

Recipe:

* Mushroom quiche with no-roll crust

* Variations

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Donut muffins: Two great tastes in one confection

The Market Basket, a bright little bakery on a busy corner about a mile from the harbor in Rockport, Maine, gets muffins right. Carol Manley does the baking. Every morning she cranks out an impressive spread of blueberry, corn, raspberry, and most important, her highly prized cinnamon-sugar donut muffins.

Recipe:

* Donut muffins

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For lazy weekends

Good American scones are craggy, cakey, and crumbly, perfect with coffee on a lazy weekend morning. Making them at home takes practice. You need confidence, quick hands, and a hot oven.

Recipe:

* Maple walnut scones

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Sharing the pleasures of real sushi

By Debra Samuels, Globe Correspondent

She is the author of ``The Japanese Kitchen," an accessible volume introducing readers to the basics of the cuisine, and "The Sushi Experience," published this month, which takes sushi-lovers from the simplest hand rolls to complex nigiri-zushi -- raw fish on finger-size beds of rice -- the real test of a sushi chef. Along with step-by-step photographs, Shimbo explains how to cut fish yourself.

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Boston Globe – October 25, 2006

Plonkapalooza

A second annual wine tasting ranks the top bottles available for $10 or less. European vineyards again dominate, but South African whites and reds surprise.

By Stephen Meuse, Globe Correspondent

Since there will always be more weekdays than weekends and more simple suppers than dinner parties, it stands to reason that the surest way to get more pleasure out of life is to improve your everyday experience. Start with an upgrade to your everyday wine.

For more information:

* The starting point: the 50 nominated wines

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Seasons

Real butter made the old-fashioned way, that is, by hand with the best quality milk, is a world away from butter you buy in one-quarter pound sticks. In a garage in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, butter is made to taste the way it might have decades ago. Kate's Homemade Butter is churned 4,000 pounds at a time in the garage of a split-level house on a quiet side street.

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A dark, spicy cake is full of fall flavor

An earthy, deeply aromatic cake, built on pureed pumpkin and capped with a sheer, buttery bourbon glaze is an enchanting fall sweet. Cut into the darkly moist cake, which is large and will feed a crowd, and you'll find it threaded through with golden raisins, walnuts, and dates.

Recipe:

* Spiced pumpkin cake with maple-bourbon glaze

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For novices, it's one forgiving cookie

A great sugar cookie dough comes together like a dream and isn't sensitive when someone is too rough with it. Mishandling can result from a number of things: nervous bakers working on rolling out dough for the first time, or tiny hands cutting fanciful shapes. That requires a dough that's very forgiving.

Recipe:

* Basic sugar cookie dough

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Boston Globe – November 8, 2006

Moonlighting

Sampling late-night fare after work

By Jonathan Levitt, Globe Correspondent

This is not a late-night town. No matter where you are, last call for drinks is at 2 a.m. and then the whole place shuts down. There are no all-night jazz clubs or endless dance parties. Still, between last call and the first light of dawn there's activity. Enough spots in this concentrated area stay open to host the sleepless or revelers looking for pizza, sushi, or eggs and toast.

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Banana bread

When the house could use a little extra warmth, crank up the oven, and start baking. The next morning, you'll be pleased that you did. As a quick bread, banana bread -- along with pumpkin and gingerbread -- is a breeze to make.

Recipe:

* Chocolate-chip walnut banana bread

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From soup to pie, squash makes cold-weather entertaining easy

By Marlissa Briggett, Globe Correspondent

Tish Bullock approaches winter squash with the same enthusiasm she brings to canning beets, relish, peppers, and cranberries and to preparing 20 French-Acadian meat pies for the holidays.

Recipe:

* Buttercup squash soup

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Recipe:

* Sweet potato buttermilk pie

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Boston Globe – November 15, 2006

Be prepared — and hungry

Boy Scout Troop 160 holds an annual outdoor cooking event that fires up kids and parents

By Emily Shartin, Globe Correspondent

Presiding over several pots of vegetables, which are cooking over gas-powered camp stoves, Tad Co burn knows that dinner time is close for the 70 hungry children and adults who are milling about, trying to keep their hands warm with cups of hot cider. All that's left to check on is the meal's centerpiece -- five 14-pound turkeys that have been cooking all afternoon.

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Strike the right balance between bottle, meal

Although this menu has its quirks -- sage-infused stuffing, sugary yams -- matching these ingredients with a suitable wine doesn't offer any more of a challenge than you're likely to encounter with other menus. Over the years, we've sipped old Bordeaux and 3-month-old Beaujolais, New and Old World pinot noir, Rhode Island cabernet franc, even German and Alsatian riesling with more or less equal success.

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Wines for the bird

* Two whites that can stand up to the bird

* Two sleek and stylish reds

* A pair to knock them out

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A basket of biscuits hot from the oven

The ubiquitous mating of a crusty loaf with soups and stews can get wearisome when you crave something tender, warm, and delicious slathered with butter. If that's the case for the Thanksgiving table, it's time to make biscuits.

Recipe:

* Scallion-flecked Gruyere biscuits

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A family recipe

As Thanksgiving nears, markets are selling lots of ground turkey, which can be substituted for beef in many recipes. You lose little in flavor, and get the benefit of fewer calories and fat. I discovered this recently when I made a dish from my Grandma Bess's repertoire of Eastern European specialties. Friday night dinners at her house often featured steaming plates of plump cabbage rolls bathed in a sweet and sour tomato sauce dotted with raisins.

Recipe:

* Stuffed cabbage rolls

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Taking a shot at a Southern classic

By Clea Simon, Globe Correspondent

Pecan pie's essential ingredients are butter, eggs, sugar, corn syrup, and nuts. The Karo brand of corn syrup, say aficionados, is key. "You've got to use Karo or it ain't pie," says Fisher. That may be because the sticky syrup, first marketed in 1902, claims to have invented the confection.

Recipes:

* Bourbon pecan pie

* Pecan pie

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Knobby, misshapen, but lovely to eat

By Diana Burrell, Globe Correspondent

Quince was popular with New England's early settlers, who planted seeds from cultivated European specimens and used the pectin-rich fruits in pies, jellies, and marmalades. (The word marmalade comes from the Portuguese word for quince jam, marmelada.) But as apples and pears captured American taste buds, the quince, too astringent to be eaten raw, fell from grace.

Recipes:

* Quince tart

* Tart pastry

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Boston Globe -- November 22, 2006

Thanksgiving Recipe Guide

This guide includes links to over 50 recipes ranging from old favorites like roast turkey and mashed potatoes to new ideas like baked penne with squash, eggplant, and mushrooms and scallion-flecked Gruyere biscuits.

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Boston Globe – November 29, 2006

Six simple rules for better, more satisfying wine drinking

By Stephen Meuse, Globe Correspondent

Crowds will fill the aisles of the Boston Wine Expo this weekend, sniffing and swirling and sipping wines from around the world. They'll be there to meet importers and winemakers and sample varietals they've never heard of. Some will attend seminars by bona fide gurus. When it's all over, some will head home inspired to buy smarter and drink better in 2006. What are the chances they actually will?

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Out of Africa

Chef Marcus Samuelsson returns to his roots

By Alison Arnett, Globe Staff

Marcus Samuelsson has one of the most winning smiles in the culinary world. As he rushes around Rialto's kitchen one afternoon recently, he flashes that smile often as he sautees shrimp piri piri over dancing flames. The brightly colored shellfish bounce in the pan.

For more information:

* To Boston-area Africans, native foods taste like home

Recipes:

* Mango couscous

* Piri piri

* Shrimp piri piri

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Sedaris dishes laughs with tips

By Jonathan Levitt, Globe Correspondent

Sedaris was in town to promote "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence," a book about entertaining. She is known for playing the 47-year-old ex-con Jerri Blank on Comedy Central's "Strangers With Candy," for bit roles on shows like "Sex and the City," and for off-Broadway plays produced with her brother and author David Sedaris. Now Amy has taken on a new role as a sort of twisted anti-Martha Stewart.

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Rich flavor makes this one to savor

This particular favorite, cheesecake with smoked salmon, comes from chef Richard Perry , who was a celebrated restaurateur in St. Louis in the 1980s.

Recipe:

* Cheesecake with smoked salmon

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Boston Globe – December 6, 2006

Chocolate makes a sweet career change

By Andrea Pyenson, Globe Correspondent

One day last winter, after having worked as a carpenter for 22 years, Jonathan Spillane came home and said to his wife, "I quit." He had had enough of climbing ladders and working on rooftops in the freezing cold. He wanted to find another way to express himself creatively. And he thought he might do it through chocolate instead of wood.

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Look Ma, no veggies (except potatoes and corn)

By Andrea Pyenson, Globe Correspondent

The middle schooler is one of three students who agreed to write down everything they ate over the course of two weekdays for the Globe. All eat lunch at school — though sometimes they avoid that — and other meals at home. In order to see clearly what these three students are up to, we met with them first at their school, went back for a follow-up session, then reviewed what they wrote with a South End nutritionist.

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Spicy tomato sauce

The Italian "alla puttanesca" sauce refers to ladies of the night. According to foodlore, the classic sauce (tomatoes, capers, anchovies, garlic, and crushed red peppers) is either what the women ate after work, or the salty, spicy, appealing mixture is named for the women themselves.

Recipe:

* Penne alla puttanesca

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A homey medley of herbs and beans

The savory bean and herb-laden soup, called ash-e-reshteh, is Iranian comfort food, explains Moty Bakhtiari, the matron of the small, family-owned restaurant. Her spot draws local students, whom Bakhtiari nurtures.

Recipe:

* Ash-e-reshteh (Bean and pasta soup)

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Recipes:

* Chocolate sauce

* Profiteroles

* French onion soup

* Bulgogi

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Boston Globe – December 20, 2006

Mangia! (x7)

Many Italian-American families celebrate Christmas Eve by feasting on courses of fish

By Jonathan Levitt, Globe Correspondent

What they and many other Italian - Americans call the Feast of the Seven Fishes (some people say it represents the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church), is as much a tradition for her as it was for her parents' family in the old country.

Recipes:

* Crabbies

* Anne Pizzi’s lobster sauce

* Marianne Tortola's squid meatballs

* Donata Tortola’s vuticigli (little toads)

* Marietta Tortola's oven-fried smelts

* Sue Cotoni's baccala

* Anne Pizzi's baked shrimp

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Move over, Shirley Temple

By Wendy Fox, Globe Correspondent

Some Boston-area chefs have added entire menus of nonalcoholic drinks that go with food — as opposed to, say, Virgin Marys and Shirley Temples that are really before-dinner drinks — while others have added one or two juice-based specialties that aren’t too fruity for a hearty holiday repast.

* Aromatic almond elixir

* Pomegranate-pineapple pleasure

* Tarragon lemonade

* Poinsettias

* Orange-mint julep

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Sweet story spans cultures, eras

By Ann Cortissoz, Globe Staff

My grandfather, Gilberto Cortissoz, bought a candy factory in El Salvador in the mid-1920s. The factory had become his dream when he lived in Colombia, and the dream inspired him to move to New York to earn the money. At his factory, Gilberto made taffy, gumdrops, and butterscotch, among other sweets.

Recipe:

* Vanilla caramels

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Boston Globe – January 3, 2007

Market grains

A cookbook author is sold on quinoa and its kin

By Sheryl Julian, Globe Staff

Teff is the tiniest grain and is often turned into the spongy Ethiopian bread, injera. Next comes amaranth; each pale dot is smaller than the head of a straight pin. The third smallest is quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wa), an important source of protein for the ancient Incas.

Recipes:

* Farro risotto

* Cooked millet

* Shrimp, corn, and quinoa soup

* Millet with buttermilk and chives

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Chapter and verse on vegetarianism

By Jonathan Levitt, Globe Correspondent

He also began collecting vegetarian cookbooks and other related ephemera, until he had more than 200 American and British volumes and periodicals dating from the 17th century to the present, as well as menus, autographs of well-known vegetarians, even a plastic guitar pick belonging to the late Linda McCartney.

Recipe:

* Nut Scrapple

* Roasted eggplant with tahini

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A low-calorie bowl

If cauliflower made an appearance on the holiday table, it was likely cloaked in a cheese-filled white sauce, covered with breadcrumbs, and baked. This member of the cabbage family, a descendant of broccoli, has a mild, nutty flavor that pairs well with rich dairy products.

Recie:

* Cauliflower soup

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On Vineyard, family history is full of beans

By Clea Simon, Globe Correspondent

For Cynthia Riggs, Boston baked beans are more than a dish. They're family history. "My mother always talked about my great-grandmother making Boston baked beans," recalls Riggs, a 13th-generation Islander, as residents of Martha's Vineyard prefer to be called.

Recipe:

* Baked beans