Modern Take on the Classic Oyster Bar This is an amazing raw bar that serves a couple dozen varieties of fresh oysters and shellfish with innovative accoutrements like pickled ginger or kimchi ice. Dishes like the house-cured herring with beet ice amiably remind you that the kitchen is jamming on all cylinders and knows what it’s doing.… Read More →
Operation Farm Rescue Record-breaking rainfall in Texas has had a devastating impact on communities and agriculture. Over the weekend, I received the following note from a friend, chef Rene Ortiz, with a call to action to help Urban Roots recover from flooding. An Austin-based non-profit, Urban Roots transforms the lives of young people through food and farming,… Read More →
Esquites & Yellow Tomato Gazpacho By Tara O’Brady You’re most likely familiar with elote, slathered grilled corn on the cob in a mixture of mayonnaise, chile powder, lime, salt, and cheese that is popular in Mexico. One summer dinner when we had more than the expected number at the table and not enough cobs for… Read More →
How to Win Your Next Dinner Party Maybe you’re the shy type who freaks at the idea of striking up conversation at an intimate dinner with strangers; maybe you’ve been hiking the Appalachian trail for the past few months and need a refresher course on culture and current events; or maybe you’re just a food-obsessed… Read More →
America’s Leading Pitmaster Aaron Franklin cooked his first brisket in 2002. After seven years of practice, he opened a food truck with his wife Stacy, though a few glowing reviews resulted in long lines and a move to a brick-and-mortar location on Austin’s east side just a year later. Today, Franklin and his crew serve… Read More →
Taipei’s Best Xiao Long Bao The Shanghai-style soup dumplings, or xiao long bao, at Din Tai Fung have a cult following like no other. A refugee of China’s civil war, Yang Bing-yi opened the original location on Taipei’s east side in the 70s. A couple decades later, the New York Times named the dumpling house as… Read More →
Greek Yogurt Panna Cotta By Janet Fletcher I like to serve this panna cotta parfait-style, in clear glasses, with the ruby-red fruit puree on the bottom. Diners plunge their spoon down through the creamy layer and bring up a smidgen of sauce with each spoonful, no inverting required. However, you can also prepare the panna… Read More →
Lamb Meatballs in Warm Yogurt Sauce By Janet Fletcher A gem of a recipe from the Eastern Mediterranean kitchen, these succulent meatballs bathe in a sauce that will have you scraping the bowl. I have seen similar recipes for whole lamb shanks or chunks of shoulder, but meatballs cook more quickly. They are browned first,… Read More →
Old Standbys & New Additions at Target Field Home of the Twins, Target Field is a beautiful stadium in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. In just a few years, they’ve really amped up the food program, now offering a host of good eats and craft beverages from local restaurants, breweries and distilleries. So I’d suggest… Read More →
Minnesota Restaurants Supporting Local Farms I love all four seasons, but there are few greater things in life than the first days of a Minnesota spring. We love celebrating another winter survived, and if you’re anything like me, food plays a huge role. I can’t wait until restaurants unveil their spring menus, teeming with fresh… Read More →
Easy Izakaya Fare By Andrew Zimmern The foods of the Japanese izakaya (taverns) are among the most beloved in the world. There’s not a chef in the country who doesn’t try his or her hand at chawanmushi, ramen, soba, robata-style fish, yakitori and so on. Surprisingly, though, very few home cooks do. I’m not sure why. Myths abound… Read More →
Garganelli with Prosciutto & Peas By Thomas McNaughton Especially if you swap out store-bought penne for the garganelli, this recipe can come together in a matter of minutes. In the restaurant, I like to add in arugula at the end of cooking so that it wilts in the pan, and then garnish the finished plate… Read More →
Silky Ma Po Eggplant By Andrew Zimmern This is one of my favorite dishes, made easy for the home cook. If you like a bolder, funkier flavor just add a little more toban djan (chile bean sauce). This superb all-in-one meal is a great way to use a small amount of meat to accent a… Read More →
Trust me, you don’t want to miss this. Cochon 555, one of the country’s most talked about culinary competitions, comes to Minneapolis on Mar. 1, 2015 to celebrate family farms, heritage breed pigs and today’s emerging chef community. This epic culinary experience coming here is further validation of our position as one of the great… Read More →
New Orleans-Inspired Recipes for Mardi Gras Mardi Gras is an indulgent and revelrous holiday, an annual excuse to eat, drink and celebrate all day long before the start of Lent. Next to king cake and party beads, you can’t forgo a meal of classic Creole and Cajun flavors. So if a trip to New Orleans… Read More →
A Modern Approach to Mexican Tradition There’s no doubt that Pujol, Enrique Olvera’s flagship restaurant in Mexico City, is one of the most important eateries in the Americas. Open since 2000 and currently ranked among the world’s best restaurants, Pujol showcases Mexico’s pre-colonial and indigenous foods shot through a fine dining prism. Last year, the… Read More →
Embrace the Cold A lot of people think I’m nuts when I tell them I live in Minnesota. Yeah, it’s cold here. However, the difference between Minnesotans and most other folks is that we embrace the cold. We ski, ice fish, skate and sled. We even still cook outdoors. We pack our weekends with loads… Read More →
An Impressive Debut After working in some of Chicago’s most prestigious kitchens—Charlie Trotter’s, Alinea and Schwa—chef Jake Bickelhaupt started an underground supper club, or “guestaurant,” called Sous Rising. With his wife Alexa Welsh, Bickelhaupt hosted Michelin-quality meals with a casual, dinner party feel in their Chicago apartment for nearly two years. In early 2014, Bickelhaupt and Welsh opened… Read More →
Kotulk Daw By Andrew Zimmern Last year, I had the privilege to take part in a Kurdish meal of epic proportions in Nashville. The star of the 25-course meal was these dumplings. Kotulk Daw is made of three parts: The dumpling dough, the meat stuffing, and the soup (which at the end is really a… Read More →
From the culinary adventures of Bob & Sue By Bob & Sue We enjoyed three spectacular dinners and several memorable lunches from the best of Chicago: Grace Both the Fauna and Flora tasting menus included a number of dazzling presentations from a highly-trained kitchen staff. Among the highlights were Alaskan king crab in cucumber juice with… Read More →
My Favorite Cookbooks of the Year Every year hundreds of cookbooks are published, dozens of which deserve a spot on your shelf. But we’ve tried to narrow it down to a handful that really impress–whether it’s the private cooking lessons from the world’s best chefs in Dana Cowin’s Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen, cooking… Read More →
Cookbook Gurus Brothers Matt and Ted Lee grew up in Charleston, South Carolina but attended colleges in Massachusetts. They so missed the foods from back home that they founded The Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, a mail-order Southern food company. When an editor of Travel + Leisure magazine asked them to write a story about road-tripping their home state… Read More →
Chicken with Black Limes By Andrew Zimmern I got hooked on salted dried limes in India and then fell in love when I ate them in Syria. Often referred to as loomi or lumi, these limes are crucial to the authentic cooking of the Middle East and northern India. The flavor of these limes is intense. They’re… Read More →
Holiday Doughnuts By Zoë François and Jeff Hertzberg Adapted from Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Zoë François and Jeff Hertzberg.
Save Room for Dessert Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because we celebrate our cultures with our families surrounded by something other than gift-giving… and there’s lots of great grub. From a classic pumpkin pie and gooey pecan tart to an updated apple cake with porter fudge caramel, here are nine delicious desserts to… Read More →
Cauliflower Cake By Yotam Ottolenghi Having lived in Britain for more than sixteen years, there are certain names and phrases with which I am perfectly familiar: Doctor Who, Ring a Ring o’ Roses, Curly Wurlies, Blue Peter, and cauliflower cheese, to name just a few; but I have no clue as to their meaning. This… Read More →
Roast Crown of Goose By Giana & Clovisse Ferguson Goose will always be a celebration dish – the bird itself is large and its meat is very rich, so it lends itself to feeding a big table full of family. The reason for removing the legs is that they always overcook and dry out; here… Read More →
Tacos fit for a zombie fest. By Andrew Zimmern You can find these delicious veal brain tacos at Andrew Zimmern’s Canteen during this weekend’s annual Zombie Pub Crawl-re, or if you’d rather avoid the raucous fake blood-covered crowd, try making them at home.
German Pub Fare By Andrew Zimmern These are the crispy beer hall pork shanks that I have loved all over Austria, Germany and Eastern Europe. One night, I went to the Augustiner beer hall with some friends for dinner and left there bound and determined to re-create this dish at home. It’s brined, cooked in… Read More →
Japanese Meatballs By Andrew Zimmern Tsukune are Japanese chicken meatballs that are cooked on a griddle, teppanyaki-style. The moment I tried making them with duck, I was hooked. Since my favorite thing about duck is often the crispy skin, I found a way to use the duck cracklings as a garnish to provide roasted flavor and needed… Read More →
