The Beauty of Relishes

Could relish-making be the key for busy people who want nutritious meals without spending a lot of time in the kitchen? Time to move it from quaint and old-fashioned and into the category of vital skills for healthy eaters.

Best Practice Secrets of Good Every Day Cooks

For a recent magazine article, Martha Stewart was asked how often she orders take out. Her response was something like a couple times over the last 15 years.

Fact is, there are people “out there” who make healthy, good-tasting meals night after night like it’s no big deal. What do they know that most people don’t?

The Special Beauty of Old Things

Turning hard grain kernels into soft baking flour I have a fondness for things that have withstood the test of time–like Farmer John’s grain mill.  Manufactured in the 1940s and having traveled across three states before landing in Colorado, the mill is still in fine working order.  No planned obsolescence here! Grain poured in the top funnel … Read more

Recipe: Beef and Onion Saute with Rhubarb Gratin

Discover the Savory Side of Rhubarb Accustomed to seeing rhubarb in fruit desserts, it may come as a surprise to learn that it is actually a vegetable.  This is good news, however, as it presents a whole raft of additional uses for this exotically red food that is so abundant in spring when the foodscape … Read more

Building Your “Tasting Muscles”–and Putting Them to Good Use

The ill consequences of our couch potato culture aren’t limited to flabby abs and saggy triceps. All the homogenized foods that comprise the bulk of our diet have gradually eroded our “tasting muscles,” too, making it harder to enjoy and be satisfied with foods we feel good about eating.

Bad Boy Bacon VS. The Cheese Danish

What a way to stir up controversy, angst and anxiety:  At a health fair last week, we demonstrated Spinach Sauteed with Pears and Bacon.  Yes, you read that right.  We made a dish featuring none other than bad boy bacon.  Not turkey bacon, not a vegetarian imitation, not a special lean variety, just good old … Read more

Processed Foods: The Good, the Bad and When to Break the Rules

If there’s a reliable dietary culprit, “processed food” would be it. In fact, “processed foods” has become practically synonymous with bad-for-you food. However, most of the foods we eat are “processed,” subjected to some kind of “process” from simple cooking, grinding and fermenting to complex hydrogenating, modifying and refining. So in a practical sense, how do we implement the experts’ advice to eliminate processed foods? Instead of an either/or definition, I use the far more helpful “Tree to Test Tube Continuum” to sort out good from bad and when it’s OK to break the rules.