Wednesday, December 12, 2012
This is my final post capturing a few sentiments from this year’s Farm to Fork class at Harvard. A photo montage of all the meals prepared by students is here and fifty words describing some key concepts of healthy, sustainable eating are here. Thanks for reading! In the United States, we’re all very familiar with the ever-popular box of fast food served to…
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
While a picture may be worth a thousand words, sometimes writers just prefer …. words. On a whim, I jotted down some of the key phrases that came up during the students’ presentations at last night’s farm to fork dinner. (Photo slideshow here.) And, because these concepts are at the heart of the class—as well as this blog—I am sharing them with you…
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Sustainable Eating: Putting Theory into Practice One of the classes I teach that focuses on food production, nutrition, health, and sustainability is “From Farm to Fork: Why What You Eat Matters” at Harvard Extension School. The final assignment is a cooking project that challenges students to bring together the concepts we’ve discussed in class into a meal that considers the…
Monday, December 10, 2012
It’s the second week of December, and I have a lot on my mind. I’m trying desperately to achieve year-end professional and personal goals, finish Christmas shopping (which requires starting), and not gain ten pounds as I attend various holiday parties overflowing with platters of fabulous Christmas cookies and festive holiday cocktails. Come to think of it, it was just…
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Do you eat fish? Why not? I am very lucky to have grown up in a fish-eating family on Long Island, New York, where seafood is fresh and plentiful. The situation is much the same here in Boston, Massachusetts (also on the Eastern seaboard of the United States). I simply revel in delights like oysters, lobster, mussels, and a wide variety of…
Friday, December 7, 2012
Who Doesn’t Love Stuffed Mushrooms? Have you ever found yourself enjoying a delicious stuffed mushroom hors d’oeuvre at a party and wishing you didn’t need to hold back politely to make sure there were enough for all the guests? These tasty morsels of roasted mushrooms and herbs mixed together with fillings of the cook’s whimsy are indeed everyone’s favorite, and I’m…
Thursday, December 6, 2012
So now that you know how to roast a pumpkin, it’s time to put those slimy seeds to use. Far from food refuse, Cucurbita pepo seeds are as delicious as they are nutritious. Rich in zinc, iron, and a number of other minerals, phytosterols, and antioxidants important for health and disease prevention, they make a lovely garnish for a soup or salad. They…
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Want to skip all this and just learn how to toast the seeds? Click here. Given it’s just the first week in December, yesterday’s holiday cookie recipe for dark chocolate biscotti really was an anomaly. That’s because I have a number of posts dedicated to fall cooking and baking still in the works, and three of them begin with fresh sugar…
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
My foray into annual Christmas cookie baking began yesterday, much earlier than my usual sprint that begins on December 23 and ends in the wee hours of Christmas morning. (True story.) Indeed, I am quite sure I have never baked cookies the first week of December, but I was keen to attend a swapping event with the New England Culinary…
Monday, December 3, 2012
A lot of things get stuffed around the holidays. It begins with Thanksgiving, when Americans are stuffing turkeys and Canadians are stuffing geese. Many smaller birds can also be stuffed, whether capons, Cornish hens, squab, or whatever. Some people can’t decide and stuff a chicken into a duck into a turkey in everyone’s favorite portmanteau. And vegetarians and vegans pride…
