Recipes

Earning of pride-of-place on many a '40s and '50s shower table, the frosted sandwich loaf was a tower of cream-cheese ...
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It happens after every dinner party. The guests head home. I clear away the wine bottles, and whatever fell behind ...
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It's 12th night tonight! I'm not in baking mode--running about in the sunshine with my boys--so no kings cake, but ...
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In 1945, Ann Sather plunked down savings earned at a Chicago meat-packing plant to buy an already-existing Swedish diner. Although ...
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Whatever craziness is going on, in my head or otherwise, baking grounds me. Last night, for example, at like 4 ...
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Gina DePalma thinks her mom got the recipe for this gorgeous, not-too-sweet apple cake from a ’50s women’s magazine. When ...
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Good recipes are like friends, they come, they go. In fashion and out. Some, you may not see for a ...
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Cherished recipes are like ripples, each one an echo of the wave-maker that broke the surface. This Ballymaloe House lamb ...
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This is comfort, pure and simple. Smooth and creamy vanilla pudding, fresh sliced bananas, crisp little vanilla wafers, and a ...
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This recipe story moves from Chicago to England to California and back again : ) It started back when I ...
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This is a pot of pure comfort. Beef Bourguignon. I have had many requests for this most-classic of beef-stew recipes, ...
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Enhanced with curry, dried mushrooms and bacon, this beef-barley soup from long-gone Helen’s Olde Lantern in Blue Island, IL, was ...
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Perfectly moist, dark chocolate cake, with light-chocolate whipped cream, and a pint of fresh raspberries dotted over the top. That’s ...
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Pull these soft little clouds of biscuit hot from the oven, slit them and fill them with salty country ham, ...
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I have a friend who calls beets "essence of dirt clod" : ) But I have always loved their earthy ...
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Despite the unfortunate Phaseolus vulgaris moniker—the American Common Bean category includes bunches of beloved, native-to-the-Americas beans: navy, red kidney, pinto, ...
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From the time it opened in its first unit in 1898 until the last Ebinger's Bakery turned out its lights ...
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From Hollywood’s Brown Derby restaurant and named for its owner, Robert Howard Cobb, the Cobb Salad is the original chopped ...
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Today it was an impulse buy. But seeing those beautiful, almost prehistoric looking stalks of Brussels sprouts, I couldn't resist ...
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A bunch of Chicagoans wrote to tell us they missed this spicy-good signature shrimp appetizer from long closed Joe’s Be-Bop ...
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Mardi Gras parades for 2021 may have been canceled, but the feasting goes on. With crawfish season on, fill a ...
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In a typical day, Shelby McCreedy might deal with, oh, money laundering, public indecency, intoxication, and some kind of theft ...
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These nippy, buttery little crackers are soooooo easy to make! And they have a wonderful, crumbly texture. You can make ...
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From the time it opened in 1905, until it closed in 1962, Little Jack’s restaurant was a force in the ...
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Ask about the origins of this belly-filling, budget-stretching American favorite and you’ll get different answers. Some point to Cincinnati’s habit ...
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With a pandemic raging, daily life has taken on some sudden changes. For my family, with an nonagenarian dad upstairs ...
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While the chicken soup I grew up with was a hearty rustic version, friends of mine have sung the praises ...
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After my brother got mononucleosis as a kindergartner (how does that happen to a five-year-old?) Mom launched a relentless iron-rich ...
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Homemade chicken soup may be a comfort for body and soul, but tuck that beautiful stock, chicken and vegetables under ...
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Making pie crusts is such a soothing thing. A quieting, settling-in ritual that centers you in one place and time ...
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Chocolate and Valentine's Day are a forever pairing. For me, the choco-heart tradition is dipped in memories of my Aunt ...
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Stir it up! That’s the chorus in Britain on Stir it Up Sunday, right before Advent. Churchgoers hear, “Stir up, ...
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I love bananas, their shape, color, scent & taste--and that they come wrapped in their own packaging, with a handle ...
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Last time I chatted with longtime Minnesota State Fair “Supreme Ruler of the Kitchen,” Elaine Janas, the topic at hand ...
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Richly flavored with molasses, strong coffee and a generous portion of ground cloves, these bars are one of my favorite ...
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I get a lot of requests for old recipes from the Como Inn, a long-gone Chicago restaurant favorite which operated ...
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My lovely friend Kathleen S. grew up 15 miles from Silver Creek, NY, where they still host a Festival of ...
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In Southeastern Michigan, “Coney Island” refers to 24-hour diners, and, the specific kind of chili-topped, grilled hot-dogs those diners serve ...
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Here's a little-known fact: Early corn-dog purveyor Ed Waldmire, Jr., wanted to call his corn-dog stand “The Crusty Cur”….his wife ...
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I like a many-textured cornbread: crunchy on the outside, tender inside, with plenty of chewy corn niblets for added flavor ...
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What to do with the leftover corned beef? Make hash! It takes just three ingredients: corned beef, potatoes, and onions ...
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Even though Georgia’s “official” state food is grits, there was a time when this simple tomato-and-pepper chicken curry was identified ...
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Crawfish season is in full-swing, and there’s no better way to prepare those bright red “mudbugs” than in a hot ...
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According to the Farmer’s Almanac, celery needs three things to thrive: a long growing season, mostly cool weather, and a ...
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Creamy cool and sunny as the summer nectarines it includes, this light, fruit-flecked cheesecake was requested by reader Marge. Marge ...
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Sure, sugar pies are good, but a sturdy savory pie in midwinter is heaven. In response to a reader request, ...
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There are people out there who don't like pumpkin pie. (Cue collective Midwestern gasp!) But there are other pumpkin possibilities ...
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Take bread pudding up a few notches! With chocolate stout giving the cocoa-bean chocolate an more-intensely dark backbone. And the ...
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In the hazy realm of childhood memory live two related events: The first time I plopped a scoop of my ...
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This beautiful cake is our family-birthday must. After I researched this story about it and developed the recipe, with input ...
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There are nearly as many recipes for gumbo as there are Cajuns. A lot of ‘em are made with okra, ...
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To me, the best egg salad is a refined egg salad. In the realm of protein-“salad” fillings, chunky is fine ...
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This recipe search started with a request from a reader looking for a meat filling that included raisins, spices and ...
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If you ever get to Benkelman, Nebraska, stop in at the Dundy County History Museum and tell them Lost Recipes ...
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It probably wasn’t an apple. Apricot, pear or pomegranate…maybe. But mythologists suggest that the eye-opening, original-sin-ushering fruit Eve plucked from ...
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PTA School Barbecue Day has been a beloved tradition at Franklin Park, IL, District 84 schools since the 1950s. Featuring ...
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From the Oleson-family-owned O&H Danish Bakery, just north of Chicago in Racine, WI, these bars are easy-good. Third-generation baker Eric ...
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My Mom grew up eating fresh figs from a large, spreading fig tree that grew by her house in Southern ...
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There are a lot of vintage cheesecake recipes out there that ask you to “sieve” cottage cheese. Basically, that means ...
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I first launched Lost Recipes Found as a column in the Chicago Tribune, which has a lovely archive of vintage ...
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It’s tall. It’s magnificent. It’s the quintessential German Chocolate Cake: Four layers with classic coconut pecan filling. This cake’s tender ...
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This goes back to when I first launched Lost Recipes Found for the Chicago Tribune, in answer to a reader ...
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My boys love gingerbread–the dark rich flavor of the cookie, and, the poses they can bend and flex the classic-cookie-guys ...
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America's love affair with cinnamon rolls is alive and well. Cinnamon rolls, sticky buns, coffee cakes...I've featured recipes for all ...
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Wow, the things you learn when digging into etymology! Word geeks tell us that the “goose” in “gooseberry”, for example, ...
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Although there’s not much razzle dazzle on the outside, beauty–delicate, buttery, apricot-tender, cinnamon-sugared perfection–lies within. Susan Levin of Long Grove, ...
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When I grew up in nineteen-seventies Chicago, Sundays were family days. We’d drive to Grandma’s little brick bungalow on the ...
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Anchovies, chives, parsley, wine vinegar, sour cream…the original Green Goddess dressing was created by Chef Phillip Roemer of San Francisco’s ...
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Nevadan Elizabeth Castle says she got this recipe from her 93-year-old aunt, Myrnie Dawson, of Princeton, IL. Elizabeth got so ...
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The sun is shining in through the windows, lighting up the mixing bowls and rolling pins, cookie cutters and pudding ...
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There are lots of new takes on “newtons” out there. Our vintage version riffs on Ann Pillsbury’s classic ’50s recipe ...
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For all of you firepit fans and s'mores lovers out there, here's my absolute favorite homemade graham cracker recipe. It ...
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Born and schooled in Texas, I ate traditional Frito-Chili Pie with the best of them (aka bag-o-corn-chips with chili ladled ...
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We could all use a little good luck to kick off the new year--platefuls of it, in fact. Good thing ...
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Creamed spinach–Texas style! Sans canned-creamed-soup and minus the processed cheese, this is a gourmet side dish worthy of birthday dinners ...
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The bar cookie brings with it the promise of plenty, the memory of family gatherings where people talked long and ...
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I've had many requests for a good home-cook version of jambalaya, and this is that. Like the dish itself, a ...
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Johnny Marzetti could very well be America's best loved and longest standing comfort casserole. A mix of ground meat, tomato ...
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I first ran this recipe story four years ago, when the Chicago Tribune gave me permission to take the Lost ...
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Was Derby pie named for the hat or the horse race? The horse race. But a hat does figure in ...
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The story of Key lime pie is delightfully odd, including Cuban sponge "hookers", mystery aunts, canned milk and curing. The ...
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Before there was Michael Douglas, there was Kirk Douglas, Michael's 1940s matinee-idol father. If it weren’t for Ant Man, in ...
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There is a delicious vegetable soup in this post. But first? Some stories. I don’t know why but I awoke ...
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Serendipity! Two or three people who don’t know each other, and live hundreds of miles apart in separate States, ask ...
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One of Chicago’s most famous pastry chefs until his death in 2011, Lutz Olkiewicz was sweets master at the Drake ...
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I first posted this story exactly three years ago. In the interim? I've had another dozen letters from Madison Guerrilla ...
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When the boys came home with a box of very ripe mangoes, they had to become sorbet! This juicy version ...
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I would never have thought to put dates with chocolate. But wow! So good! The result, as exemplified in this ...
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Chicago chef Mike Sheerin has been making the mashed potatoes at family gatherings since he was six years old. On ...
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Baking recipes usually frown on softer apples, specifying instead that you use granny smith. That means you end up making ...
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I woke up this morning remembering a whimsical fact: When my youngest child was a very small grasshopper, he nicknamed ...
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The tiny little tejocotes were so cute, I bought a handful just to look at them! When the guy at ...
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Just had the pleasure of writing about Chicago chef's favorite food memories, represented in this photo of a golden hour ...
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Max Hess, Jr. was the P.T. Barnum of the department store world, a master at selling with flamboyance and showmanship ...
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Among traditional Holiday foods, mincemeat goes waaaaaaay back. Dating from the 11th century, mincemeat pie originally packed (along with the ...
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Once-upon-a-time, I left a job as an editor for a national food magazine, to do marketing for Chicago’s beefy Lawry’s ...
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Well, here’s a Jacob Grimm you may not have heard : ) As a philologist studying Germanic folk customs, Grimm ...
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As long as there have been celebrities, there have been fans obsessed with them. The minutiae of their lives...where they ...
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When Liz Williams, director of New Orleans’ Southern Food & Beverage Museum was little, her mama couldn't stand okra. "So, ...
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The checkout lady at the grocery store thought I was on a real fat bender. “What are you going to ...
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This satisfying Southern dish full of richly flavored stock, smoky pork, vegetables, and creamy white navy beans, came to me ...
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White Russians. Remember those? They were silky as the synthetic dresses my girls-college friends and I used to slip into ...
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When I was growing up, our sometime babysitter Shirley loved baking. I can still see her, arms crossed behind her ...
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In 1961, these light, fresh-orange-and-sugar-glazed, tea cookies won Jo Ryman Scott the first-ever bake-off at Fairbanks, Alaska’s Tanana Valley State ...
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It's a thing: Thriving restaurant concepts refresh and update menus often, sometimes eliminating dishes from menus that might have been ...
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The grape harvest had happened, truckloads of deeply fragrant Concord grapes already on their way to become juice and jam ...
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Sweet, tart, earthy and rich, this beautiful celebratory Persian dish originated thousands of years ago in the Iranian province of ...
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For anybody unfamiliar, persimmons are native to America, highly-nutritious and once prized by American Indians and early settlers. They also ...
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My mom loved pimiento cheese. She had an old box grater and used to make me shred mounds of cheddar ...
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With three boys, a daughter, and son-in-law coming home for the Holidays, hearty, comforting dishes are in order for those ...
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Perfect for your Easter morning! Suzana B. wrote in search of this Portuguese Sweet Egg-Bread recipe her husband fondly remembered ...
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Since I ran the recipe for this Pinellas County, FL school cafeteria lunchroom favorite, I've heard from more than a ...
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Preserving lemons in salt is an ancient practice with delicious results. I am crazed for these, eating them sliced and ...
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You could buy pub cheese from the refrigerated section near the deli, or you could make this creamy, smoky, beer-and-bourbon-spiked ...
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January being a time of new beginnings, it’s not surprising I’ve heard from readers and friends searching for the healthy ...
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Because the result is so moist, baking and/or steaming bread in cans is an old-fashioned tradition people still ask about ...
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Berries and cream have been a thing as long cows and brambley hedges have roamed and rambled across the British ...
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It’s been a while since I’ve been to Beeville, TX. Not far from Normanna, Orangedale and Skidmore, it’s the Bee ...
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Fresh picked and washed under the cold-water spigot at edge of the orchard is undeniably the best way to enjoy ...
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Gorgeously colored from ruby to pinky-red with blushes of celery green that take on a satiny-sheen in the light, rhubarb ...
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If you can, roast a small turkey the day before you do the big Thanksgiving bird, just to make the ...
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When reader T.J. Campbell wrote in search of the recipe for a famous rum cake that used to be the ...
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We've had requesters looking for what to do with the leftover sauerkraut, so this one's for you! Rich with butter, ...
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The scent of toasting bread cubes, sausage in the skillet and fresh snipped sage just make Thanksgiving morning what it ...
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So a little history…Go to the website for British gourmet food retailer Fortnum & Mason and you’ll find the claim ...
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The berry world has its less-than-romantic nomenclature. I mean, “straw” or “rasp” don’t scream, “Eat me!” But those berries eclipsed ...
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A thing is the sum of its parts. If the parts are crap…well then. But if the parts are stellar ...
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Except for the no-sex and separation-from-the-world rules (pretty hard to overlook), I admire most everything I’ve read about Shakers. Progressive ...
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I once lived in a big, pale-green commune of sorts, where vegetarian was how you cooked, if you cooked at ...
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For many during childhood, “company coming” unexpectedly meant mom whipping up the 2-cans-of-condensed-soup-ground-beef-bacon-&-sour-cream stroganoff. Although that was a comfort classic ...
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Pan-steaming fish over aromatics and then sizzling it with hot garlic oil is an old Cantonese cooking method…..the tamarind, ginger, ...
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Hailing from Texas, my Mom made a lot of cornbread: Corn dodgers, corn cake, cornbread…we ate it with butter and ...
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Ever since a food blogger published an article early this fall talking about her shock and horror at discovering that ...
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One of my boys loves lamb, and this one-dish classic casserole, layering sautéed garden vegetables and gratineed whipped potatoes over ...
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Rich, sticky, sweet and gooey, it’s really like an upside-down cake, minus the fruit. Simple vanilla cake batter baked in ...
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Dreamy, chilled desserts full of cream, marshmallow, or mousse were very popular with housewives of the forties and fifties when ...
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I am a strawberry girl. I eat strawberries out of hand, make pies & jams with them, macerate them, even ...
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Dough made with a high fat-to-flour ratio is called “short” and bakes up into the tender crumbly biscuits we call ...
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Still hot? Me too! How about this vintage soda fountain creation? Raspberry, orange and vanilla in frothy foam…with all those ...
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This is the corn relish recipe that has won self-professed “ribbon slut” Barb Schaller eight blue ribbons at the Minnesota ...
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Greens are great, but for savory satisfaction in a summer salad, I love this cool and crunchy lentil and veggie ...
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Earthy, sexy, silky, sunchokes beguile. To me, they’re like truffles in their scent and ability to make you crave just ...
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Really simple, really good, really pretty: just chilled red potatoes, beets, crisp lettuce and a creamy, sweet & tangy mustard ...
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We tried a gardening experiment last summer, growing as many varieties of peppers as we could, enjoying their bright freshness ...
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I didn’t have the chance to visit 4000-year-old Otzi The Iceman, oldest mummy in Europe, at the South Tyrol Museum ...
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The waitress at Ernie Risser’s family restaurant in Womelsdorf, PA, watches me looking dubiously at the gravy she just plunked ...
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Pennie F. wrote in search of an old recipe for “beanless” chili that was her family's Sunday staple 20 years ...
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The first time my parents drove to the tiny Texas town where I would spend my early childhood, Dad got ...
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They come from far and near, to gather together. Family, friends--and for those who lack either: the community of those ...
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The Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 was a chocolate-lovers dream: Boston-based chocolatier Walter M. Lowney brought the first American ...
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Since debuting in 1971 at Disney’s Polynesian Resort, Tonga Toast–a cinnamon-sugared chunk of deep-fried, banana-stuffed breakfast bliss–has always been a ...
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This crispy crunchy stack of fresh-fried tortillas layered with a tomatilla- poblano meat sauce, and Chihuahua cheese is a surprisingly ...
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You know those recipes your mom used to make from what she pulled last-minute from the pantry? Nothing gourmet about ...
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I'm so late to the charms of chia! And not for lack of my daughter Em's trying--she's been raving about ...
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When Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov wasn’t busy commanding the Russian infantry in Napoleonic Wars, he feasted: Historians suggest that an ...
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Cheesecakes come in dozens of flavors and textures. Contrasting with the dense, baked cheesecakes many know, this vintage 1959 no-bake ...
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Was a time when "granola" wasn't just used as the noun for the crunchy, nutty, dried fruit cereal, but for ...
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When my mom grew up in Houston, Texas, excursions to Galveston, where my grandfather owned land, were a beach-filled regularity ...
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Chilled desserts full of cream, marshmallow, or mousse were very popular with housewives of the forties and fifties when the ...
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One of the more entertaining things about recipe books from the ‘30s and ‘40s, is what they reveal about changing ...
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Recipe provenance is a wily thing. Who combined (insert your list) ingredients to make (insert your dish) first? Definitive answers ...
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Established as a private-dining club in Chicago’s boutique Whitehall Hotel in 1956, The Whitehall Club was a fine-dining fixture for ...
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Established as a private-dining club in Chicago’s boutique Whitehall Hotel in 1956, The Whitehall Club was a fine-dining fixture for ...
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I so love the flavor of our wine-poached pears with a little cheese, it made me imagine them in this ...
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As far back as the 15th century, English cooks discovered that wine-poaching hard pears made them both tender and palatable ...
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Like bread & butter pickles? Then you’ll like the taste of this relish. I’ve received requests for what to do ...
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The road to recreating lost recipes can be winding–not always leading where you expected it to go. The search for ...
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