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Category Archives: Food

Cinnamon rolls

Saturday, March 28, 2020

I wish I could say that I made these cinnamon rolls, but I didn’t. I had my share of them, though. It is my good fortune that, by pure accident, I’m not sheltering in place as a household of one, plus one cat. There are travelers sheltering here, too, and do they ever have skills.

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Quorn Stroganoff

Friday, February 28, 2020

I had not thought of Stroganoff in years. If ever I had even made beef Stroganoff, I don’t remember it. But, a couple of weeks ago, the New York Times mentioned beef Stroganoff in its beautiful weekly column, “What to Cook This Week.” Once you get Stroganoff in your head, you might as well give […]

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The end of the road for all you can eat home cookin’?

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Hillbilly Hideway. See below for more. It’s true everywhere, but here in the American South, our cuisine is (or was) an essential part of our culture and identity. Passing that culture and identity from generation to generation is very important work. But — at least here in the American South — that work is breaking […]

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Beyond Sausage vegan bratwurst

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Beyond Sausage bratwurst, sweet and sour Brussels sprouts, and potato salad Beyond Meat’s bratwurst was on sale at a grocery store in Madison, so I decided to try it. Was it awesome? Not really. In taste and bite and texture, it was a lot like vegan cold cuts that have been on the market for […]

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Fried barley?

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Good-bye garden stir fry with fried barley For the longest time, I had been planning to see if fried barley can compete with fried rice. Yes it can. The chewy texture of barley makes great fried rice. The grains are sturdy and are not at risk of turning to mush when thrown around in the […]

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Kefir

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Kefir-lovers swear that kefir has even more probiotic virtue than yogurt. I have read that kefir culture persists in our digestive systems but that yogurt culture is transient. I have no idea if that is true. But personally I find that I like kefir better. And kefir is easier to make than yogurt. Yogurt needs […]

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A fresh take on pimento cheese

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Pimento cheese made from fresh roasted green peppers, served with my homemade borscht I was reflecting today on the history of pimento cheese, which, since my earliest childhood, has been a Southern American favorite. It seemed oddly Mediterranean, because nobody around here has ever grown pimiento peppers, nor does anybody can peppers, as far as […]

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Soup season, at last

Saturday, October 12, 2019

And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.” — Oscar Wilde One of the things I learned in Scotland this summer is that my culture of origin — Southern American — is not really a soup culture, though maybe it would be more accurate to say that the climate of the American South is not […]

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Some Scottish food porn

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

⬆︎ Pork roll with Yorkshire pudding, Royal Hotel, Stornaway Traditional Scottish cooking is strangely difficult to find. Many eateries — especially in places that cater to tourists — offer what I call “international tourist cuisine,” which is mostly Mediterranean and is pretty much the same wherever you go. On this year’s trip to Scotland I […]

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My first Impossible Whopper

Saturday, August 24, 2019

I wanted this burger to be a world-rocking experience. But unfortunately it was not. It was a perfectly decent burger. But yes, I could tell the difference. But recognizing that it wasn’t real meat wasn’t the problem. The problem — at least for me — was that the Burger King Impossible Whopper, like the burger […]

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