Category Archives: American

Picking Peaches in Georgia at Gregg Farms

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Bucket of Freshly Picked Peaches from Gregg Farms

Bucket of Freshly Picked Peaches from Gregg Farms

Picking your own seasonal ingredients from local farms is a great way to freshen up your cooking with high-quality ingredients. Not only that, but it allows you to connect with the land that your food comes from, and to harvest some of the “ugly” fruits and vegetables that would otherwise be wasted. Incredibly, somewhere between 25 and 40 percent of all the food produced in this country goes to waste, so picking some “ugly” produce can be a tasty (if minor) way to reduce that figure. read more

Stone-Ground Grits and Nora Mill Granary

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Nora Mills Granary Storefront

Nora Mill Granary Storefront

Grits are a Southern classic, made from ground corn kernels and simmered until they get thick and creamy. While usually served for breakfast, grits can also be presented as a side dish, or as part of a main course for lunch or dinner (for example, in shrimp and grits).

The most flavorful grits—way better than instant grits—are stone-ground grits. I was first introduced to stone-ground grits in college when my mother-in-law sent me a bag. My husband and I weren’t big grit eaters at the time; we had mostly eaten instant grits while backpacking, so we imagined grits as more or less a bland texture or base. read more

Halloween Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies + Bleeding Candle

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Halloween Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies with Bleeding Candle and Spiders

Halloween Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies with Bleeding Candle and Spiders

I love Halloween—it’s my favorite holiday! I’m always excited when October comes around and I can start making scary Halloween treats, like my blood-splattered cookies or these jagged glass cupcakes.

Halloween Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies

This Halloween on Flavorful Journeys I wanted to feature a dessert that isn’t as macabre as in years past (don’t worry if you like the dark side of Halloween as much as I do—I’ve also included instructions for making the bleeding candle pictured above). So I made Halloween chocolate sprinkle cookies with dark chocolate Hershey’s kisses. read more

Eating at Alinea – A Magical Dining Experience!

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Alinea Restaurant Exterior

Alinea’s nondescript exterior–it’s the gray building in the middle.

Alinea has been on my radar for a while now. I first heard about it in 2012 when one of my favorite food bloggers wrote about her experience. In 2013, Bon Appétit named Alinea the fourth best restaurant in America (see The 20 Most Important Restaurants in America). It’s also one of only two restaurants in Chicago with three Michelin stars, and it has been recognized as one of the world’s 50 best restaurants since 2007. read more

Ribeye Steak with Red Wine Sauce, Blue Cheese, Pancetta, and Candied Pecans

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Ribeye Steaks with Red Wine Sauce, Blue Cheese, Pancetta, and Candied Pecans

Ribeye Steak with Red Wine Sauce, Truffle Mac and Cheese, Salad, and Red Wine

It’s not very often that a wine–or any alcoholic beverage for that matter–inspires what I cook. Normally, I choose a meal first, then think about the beverage pairing. But when Corey and I received a nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon last summer, I made an exception.

Corey and I have very different wine preferences: I prefer light, refreshing German Rieslings with floral and sweet notes, while Corey prefers robust reds. When Corey mentioned this predicament to a colleague at his future firm this summer, she kindly sent him a bottle of Orin Swift Cellars Palermo Cabernet Sauvignon 2012–a wine that we both adored. read more