I tend to think of caponata as a Sicilian medley of the sun-soaked flavors of summer cooked down into a deeply flavorful tangle of ingredients. Rich bursts of eggplant, pepper, tomatoes, celery, zucchini and the like are mixed with an agrodolce (sweet-sour) sauce and enjoyed as an accompaniment or part of an antipasto platter. It’s […]

On a recent trip, I packed spring rolls for the flight – a travel first for me. Over the years I’ve done leftover sesame noodles, veggie burgers, quinoa bites, quinoa patties, and chickpea salad – but never spring rolls. The time of year was all wrong for any sort of traditional Vietnamese-inspired spring rolls or […]

Balsamic roasted butternut squash, deeply toasted walnuts, and nutty farro come together in this salad inspired by the countless farro salads I enjoyed while on the Umbrian chapter of a recent Italian adventure. The Italians were using farro alongside cherry tomatoes and basil (with the occasional introduction of cheese or local olives), but the seasons […]

Inspiration for this apple pie struck not long after posting a Shaker lemon pie earlier this year. I stumbled on a book about Shaker life and design in a used book store. My head was still in Shaker world, so I picked it up. It was a large book, the most comprehensive I’ve come across, […]

This winter penne pasta was inspired by the contents of a produce box. I seem to inherit CSA boxes. Friends and neighbors forget to put holds on their subscriptions before leaving town, and sure enough, they end up in my kitchen. When I was a kid there was a house that was always happy to […]

There are a number of cookbooks this spring I’m wildly excited about and this exceptional vegan chili is from one of them. It is from Jess Damuck’s Health Nut: A Feel-Good Cookbook and I’ve been making it regularly ever since I saw an early version of the book last year. I’ll talk a bit more […]

These scones are inspired by a small Rangpur lime tree I planted in a terracotta pot on our patio. The tree came in the mail, kind of twig-like in a long box, and arrived about four years ago. The harvests are small, but the limes are exquisite, so I like to make everything I do […]