When I ask a chef for a recipe to print in this column, I know it’s no small request. It’s the core blueprint of their business. A storehouse of value and trade secret all in one. Amazingly, most agree. But when I showed up at Tia’s Big Sky Artisanal Mexican Restaurant to pick up my…
Lettuce, Before and After Solstice
The summer solstice is in the rearview mirror. Even though the hottest days are before us, the longest days have passed. If you haven’t planted your tomatoes or melons yet, you might not bother. The plants will grow like steroid abusers, but there isn’t time for the fruit to ripen. Or maybe you’ll get one…
Scape Skewers: A Better Way to Use Garlic Scapes
Across the Northern Hemisphere at about this time, garlic plants are reaching for the sun. Each clove planted last fall has divided and swollen into a bulb of cloves, while the flowers emerge in a circuitous path. Each flower sits on a stalk that, before it will stand up straight like a stalk is supposed…
The Comforts of Congee, However You Cook It
A hard cocktail of rain, wind, and snowflakes assaulted the farmers market last week. It was the kind of prolonged spring squall that has to make a farmer—more of whom showed up than shoppers—question his or her career choices. The only thing that sold out was coffee, because everyone’s hands were cold. A vat of…
No Boba? No Problem: Make Bubble Tea With Frozen Blueberries
Drinkers of bubble tea are bracing for the worst. Boba balls, the tapioca-based spheres that collect at the bottom of a cup of this wildly popular Taiwanese beverage, are reportedly in short supply. Bubble tea is a combination of milk and tea, shaken or stirred to create the namesake bubbles. The boba balls sink to…
The Humble Glory of Oatmeal
“You have to eat oatmeal or you’ll dry up. Anybody knows that.” The above claim has never been disproved. It was authored by Kay Thompson and uttered by a 6-year-old girl named Eloise, who lived in The Plaza Hotel in New York with Weenie the dog and Skipperdee the turtle. Ever since I first saw…
Kick Off Your Garden Conversation With a Handful of Peas
Gardening is a conversation with the earth. The gardener does something, and the earth responds via the outcome. If you plant a tomato seedling upside down, for example, the earth will happily swallow it, thereby ending the discussion. A new dialogue starts every time the gardener sows a seed or does anything to disrupt the…
How to Dye Easter Eggs, Naturally
The egg came first; let’s just get that out of the way. For millions of years before humans domesticated the feathered lizards known today as “chickens,” countless generations of amphibia and reptiles, including dinosaurs, were laying eggs. The egg is an amazing system for nurturing young beings that’s just plain awe-inspiring to contemplate. It’s also…
The Journey to Perfect Rice
I have nothing but tough love for those who claim they can’t cook a pot of rice. Quit acting so helpless. Cook the rice. If you screw it up, consider what went wrong and adjust. Like you do when making a sandwich. Which is much easier to screw up than a pot of rice. Not…
How Corned Beef and Cabbage Became an American Irish Delicacy
I have always lived among the Irish. I grew up in Boston, a legendary Celtic hub, and settled in Missoula, Montana, 100 miles downstream from America’s most Irish city per capita: Butte. I used to credit my affinity for that feisty tribe to this coincidental geographic overlap, but now I see a deeper connection. And…
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