Crazy long days of work and not assured of getting a meal later I went for a bigger sandwich for lunch… much different than the meals I typically split with my wife, Janet. Two men sat down right next to us at the neighborhood place we were ensconced in. A nicely dressed…

Is it just me or has every major food magazine in the country had a cheeseburger on the cover as we gear up for summer? One of the magazines asked the question, “Did you have a happy meal?” and goes on to report how McDonald’s had experienced a state of “Mc Emergencies”….

Who does not love won tons? These ethereal purse like morsels of food first appeared in the Pearl River Delta port of Guangzhou during the Tang Dynasty around 618-907 A.D. Then they followed the Cantonese diaspora, drifting east to Hong Kong. If you are not yet familiar, but do know more about…

When I was a young child our home was a solid, two story, wooden structure perched on a sloping, gentle hill near a lake in Northern Illinois. We had all four seasons and we had them in full measure in that geography. Equal to them was my father. His nature and strength…

Spring is the prime time of year when the wild mushrooms known as morels are shooting up in one more example of Mother Nature’s urging, beckoning, tantalizing and delivering magic. And though we are now past that month there are dried versions that can still be very nice.  When the cold mantle…

When I was about six years of age our paternal grandmother we grandkids all called, “Gra” took me to a fancy restaurant in the city of Chicago. I was excited by the menu. I ordered the Sirloin Steak Haché. I was absolutely crestfallen when what arrived looked like a damn hamburger …….

We opened a cooking school in the Wynwood Arts part of Miami. Many people assume it is a school for professional types that are seeking a degree in cuisine. Nope. That is not what sparked me into seeking a way to do this. I have never been a student at a culinary…

There are ingredients that are so closely associated with a geography they seem inextricably tied to them and their terroir. The great Georgia born writer Flannery O’ Connor wrote this about the craft of storytelling, “When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can ……

Those of us who have lived here in South Florida for some time may remember when conch, freshly harvested from the sea was available in the grocery stores and fish markets.  My first recollection of conch was watching young boys pulling them up on to the pier at Higg’s Beach in Key…

We didn’t grow up eating okra. It was not part of the Midwestern table. At least not the ones I was sitting at. It didn’t enter my field of vision until I moved to the sunny southland. And the first time it really made an indelible print on me was during a…