This salad can be a fun addition to any smoky barbeque or a reason alone to fire up the grill. The flavors are light, bright, clean and simple. Chicory (also known as a Belgian endive) can be notoriously bitter, but a delicate toss in an herby vinaigrette and quick sear on the grill transforms this green into sweet, tender goodness.

Grilling lends a nice caramelization and new flavor to tomatoes as well. It's still a little early in the season for most locally grown heirloom varieties, but since this preparation requires firm, barely ripened tomatoes, the timing is perfect. There are over 600 kinds of 'heirloom' tomatoes and they all have these fantastic secret double agent names like Black Krim, Bloody Butcher, Mr. Stripy, or Jersey Devil. For this recipe I used the less menacing Green Zebra's and White Queens, both of which get on quite well with fresh dill and basil. More...

This post is dedicated to a green with what seems to be multiple personality disorder. Today, we examine endive, or rather chicory. Or frisee. Or grumolo. Or succory. Or escarole. Or witloof.

Endive/chicory/etc. is botanically referred to as Cichorium endivia.  However, within that species, there are a number of varietals – including radicchio, untarelle, and Belgian endive. The two main varieties of endive we eat in the US are broad-leaved (escarole) and curly-leaved (frisee, which is also a technique for wilting leaves in oil). We usually eat only the leaves of the plant, but if you travel to Louisiana, you’re bound to see chicory coffee. This coffee doesn’t have lettuce leaves in it – it contains ground Cichorium root. Do yourself a favor and drink a cup or two with a beignet – it’s delicious. More...

Becki Walker writes about food and crafts recipes. In this Fridays series, she examines the culture of farmers markets.

Nearly everyone’s heard (probably over and over again) that one of the best ways to lower your carbon footprint and love the planet is to eat less meat, especially red meat.  Eating less meat’s better for your health, too – when you’ve removed meat from your plate, there’s more room for foods lower in fat and calories, like fruits and vegetables.  But what if, even after trying to be the best environmentalist ever, you’ve still got a craving for something fleshy? More...

Becki Walker writes about food and crafts recipes. In this Fridays series, she examines the culture of farmers markets. Here she explains Certified Naturally Grown, an alternative to USDA Organic, and shopping on a budget using the food chain model and pesticide guides.

Over the course of the next few articles, I’ll be examining the farmers market.  I’ll cover how to get to know your farmer, shop on a budget, and experiment with more “unique” fruits and vegetables. Before heading to the market, though, it’s important to know some of the terminology you’re likely to find there.  Just what does organic certification mean?  Are there alternatives?  Which foods are most important to buy organically?

To be organically certified, a farm must be inspected by an agency approved by the US Department of Agriculture.  Products that are 95 – 100% organic can display the organic seal on them.  Products with at least 70% ingredients may state that they are “made with organic ingredients.”  However, anything less than 70% organic cannot include the seal on its label. More...

Eating locally and sustainably often seems easy at first.  We make plans for root cellars and preserving farmers’ market finds in the forms of jams and chutneys.  However, our commitment often strays when it comes to the basic staples:  it may be nice to have twenty-six pounds of pears, but what do you do about things like flour, sugar, and olive oil?  This week I’ll be taking a journey into one of my favorite culinary lands:  the place where bread is baked.

Bread, one of our most beloved baked goods, seems simple, but is actually a complex amalgamation of flour, water, salt, some kind of fat, and usually a leavening agent.  The leavening agent has varied over time.  The first bread, made in the Neolithic Era, was usually leavened by the natural yeast spores floating in the air.  Pliny the Elder described the Gauls and the Iberians fermenting bread with the foam skimmed from beer, while other cultures fermented wheat bran in wine, and used that yeast to leaven their bread. More...

The Dutch aren’t exactly revered for their food and cookery techniques. The most popular dishes include variations on stamppotten – that is, mashed potatoes with different vegetables incorporated.  One of the most popular kinds of stamppot is a hutspot, which is mashed potatoes, carrots, and onions.  The dish is served all around town for free in Leiden to celebrate the end of the Spanish siege.  Other forms of stamppot include apples, sausage, bacon, or today’s star vegetable:  the humble kale, known as boerenkool in Dutch. More...

Dear readers, we often link our food with memory.  I’ve written about this before, and I think that it’s one of the most powerful connections we have with what we eat.  In that spirit, I’d like to dedicate this blog to my cat, Nona, whom I had to put to sleep early in December after a losing battle with a debilitating kidney infection.  One of our favorite foods to eat together was ice cream, and while I realize it’s not exactly a seasonal vegetable, it’s still delicious. More...

If you’ve ever had hot toasted hazelnuts straight from the oven then you’ll understand how wonderful the unique taste and aroma can be.

While I love hazelnuts, I’m not really one for all the cakes, cookies, and other sweets they pop up in. I’m just not a sweet tooth, I guess. When it comes to dessert menus, I typically go for the cheese platter. So in an effort to recruit hazelnuts over to Team Savory, I began messing around and pairing them with cheese. I was reminded of this wonderful Spanish seafood dish I once had in a romesco sauce. Romesco is a garlicky puree of tomatoes, peppers and almonds. A traditional sauce of Barcelonan cuisine, it can be made with hazelnuts instead -- which is terribly convenient, seeing the Northwest (Oregon, particularly) produces nearly 99% of hazelnuts (or filberts) grown in the United States. Because local growers wait into the twilight of autumn, when hazelnuts fall on their own, what’s at the market today should be very fresh (and in the month of January, when few things are!). More...

This week, dear readers, I had the opportunity to journey to Scotland and spend a few days there.  I know that British cuisine is not exactly world-renowned for its succor, but that reputation is a bit ill deserved.  While traveling through Glasgow for a few days, I was able to not only dine quite well, but also to have one of the best meals of my life.

Though I may not be local, I can still eat locally.  While wandering down a lane with my friend Cassandra and my dear illustrator Mr. Groenink, we chanced upon a rather promising menu posted in the window.  Not only did the restaurant serve local food that was sustainably grown, they listed the actual farms certain ingredients were procured from.  Add to that the little business card quoting Virginia Woolf – “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well,” and we were decidedly intrigued enough to step inside. More...