You may not think that green tomatoes have a season—they’re available all summer long if you have access to backyard beefsteaks—but they do, and it’s now. Farm stands are piled high with them, as growers know many of them will never completely ripen on the vine. The tomato is a tropical berry, after all, and […]

My grandmother was relaxed about canning; it was something she did all her life. Her daughter, my mother—not so much. To her, standing over a hot stove stirring boiling jam was the last thing she wanted to do, ever. My father, who adored homemade relishes, pickles, jellies—I believe I got my condiment gene from him—saw […]

I’ve been on the road lately, to a few unfamiliar cities. And I’ve been struck by  the fact that whenever I ask the people who live in these places about the most interesting food story going, nine out of ten of them will tell about a restaurant or chef. But 18 rich, full years at […]

“True grits, more grits, fish, grits and collards. Life is good where grits are swallered.”  —Roy Blount, Jr. One of the many great things about attending the annual Southern Foodways Alliance symposium is that I get to go down to Oxford, Mississippi, and see some of my favorite people on the planet. I often stay with friends […]

Admittedly, the bases are loaded. The refrigerator contains small amounts of all sorts of things. Leftover kale that had been cooked with red-pepper flakes and lots of garlic. Cooked chickpeas, ditto garlic. Tomato sauce. Parsley. A hunk of sheep’s-milk cheese. A crumbly wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano, picked up on the fly while dodging the San Gennaro […]

I am waiting for a UPS shipment of a friend’s homemade fig preserves, and maybe today’s the day. The preserves are delicious on toast at breakfast, but I tend to use them more like a chutney. They embellish roast chicken, served with a judiciously thin slice of Benton’s country ham and biscuits or crumbly corn bread. […]

“I got blackberries, I got blackberries, blackberries.”—street cry, New Orleans blackberry seller Yesterday at the Greenmarket, I ignored the signs of early autumn—the first apples and acorn squash, collards and kale—and instead stubbornly lugged home corn, tomatoes, melon, and the other usual summer suspects. Fat, shiny blackberries were going for a song, and I bought […]

Scratch—adj. Informal usage. done by or dependent on chance: a scratch shot. These days, my life doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for planning and cooking meals. I do make the effort, almost every Saturday morning, to get to the Greenmarket at Union Square—I enjoy the actual shopping for provisions as much as I […]