Tomatoes and sweet corn are the stars of a Minnesota farmers market. Their first appearance is breathlessly anticipated, and as July melts into August, tomato recipes are featured in newspaper food sections while sweet corn anchors seasonally-based restaurant menus. Carefully arranged rainbows of heirloom tomatoes are the centerpiece of each market stall, and heaps of corn are sold straight from the backs of pickup trucks.
Sunday afternoon is my favorite time to cook. It's when I settle into the time-consuming recipes I dream of on weeknights and never quite get around to on hectic Saturdays: slow-simmering soups and...
I briefly mentioned in last month's anniversary post that I will be re-branding my blog in September. Although all of the existing content (recipes, restaurant reviews, travel posts, etc.) will be...
Sometimes I think this blog inaccurately portrays me as prolific culinary explorer, never eating the same thing twice and turning every dinner into a new adventure. I do try at least one new recipe a...
When I try to explain to acquaintances what sort of a person my father is, I tell them about how much he's done for me and Mike in the three years since we've bought our house. He started with...
Rhapsodizing about the glories of seasonal produce is de rigueur for food bloggers. Gushing about the superior flavor of a dew-covered strawberry just picked from the field, celebrating the ugly beauty of a lumpy heirloom tomato, buying a dozen ears of sweet corn from a roadside stand and eating them all in one sitting--these moments are set into prose again and again and again because there is a glorious truth to them.
Three years ago, on July 22, 2012, I launched My Mixing Bowl with a recipe for garlic scape pesto. It's become a bit of a tradition for me to post an annual recap on my blog's anniversary (here are...
Starting in Duluth and ending at the Canadian border, Minnesota State Highway 61 (MN 61) hugs Lake Superior's North Shore and offers dozens of scenic views along its 151-mile route. Added bonus: since...
For the sixteen weeks of the year when Minnesota produce is bountiful, I keep a CSA journal to record what arrives in our box each week and what we make with it. I like to page back through the years...
Grand Marais is my kind of small town: beautiful views of Lake Superior, lots to do, and great food. You can breakfast on the World's Best Donuts, drive to Canada and back, try a slice of Uff Da pizza...
Over the past month, I've passed by the culinary signposts marking the beginning of summer: cotton candy and deep-fried cheese curds at a local festival, linguine with asparagus and pine nuts, malted...
I usually cite July 2009 and pasta with fresh sauce as the moment when I learned how to cook. Although that summer did mark the point when I started to step away from packets of instant mashed...
Although you may not have suspected it from my previous posts on iconic New York foods, food destinations, and restaurants, we saw much more on our trip than bagels and gargantuan pieces of cheesecake...
To say that we barely scratched the surface of the New York restaurant scene is overstating things. Our trip was only a week long, and as I mentioned in a previous post, we had a few home-cooked...
When travelling, what I want to eat is almost as important as what I want to see. Happily, New York City offers the best of both worlds, with markets, shops, and neighborhoods that serve up feasts for...
Going to New York City was Mike's idea: he took a memorable trip there as a child, and now he wanted to see the city from an adult perspective. He was eager to take in a Broadway show, walk around...
Sometimes acquaintances label my food choices "interesting." In Minnesota, this can be a passive-aggressive putdown, a way of saying "You eat weird stuff that I wouldn't touch with a proverbial ten...
Tortilla cream cheese pinwheels are a simple little appetizer perfect for any sort of casual gathering: baby showers, church potlucks, backyard barbeques. But for me, they're graduation party food...
I have a minor obsession with Ritter Sport chocolate. I think it has something to do with the colorful wrappers--I have a compulsive urge to collect every single one, stack them in my pantry, and gaze upon my personal chocolate rainbow.
This is a vintage Stacy and Mike recipe, from the days when a handful of handwritten recipes from my mother, Mike's tofu stir technique, and the Betty Crocker Cookbook comprised our entire culinary knowledge. In food writing, there is a well-worn trope about learning how to cook from a wise elder, the grandparent or parent who imparts decades of wisdom about roasting a chicken or canning pickles.
