Ever cooked scary food? I used to cook it all the time back home, but now I have to adjust my scary food cooking schedule for local availability and my American family taste.  What’s scary food? You know. I am talking liver, kidneys, brains, heart, feet, tongue, bone marrow, and other such things that typically […]

Had a nice trip down the memory lane today.  We picked up a nice size flounder at a farmer’s market.  Flounder has a special place in my gastronomically inclined heart, because I grew up eating it almost every other week.  Flounder came in two sizes and colors in my town — large black ones, the […]

I like omelettes. Plain ones, vegetable ones, Greek ones, ham ones, cheese ones, mushroom ones…  I like them mostly when they are prepared for me, not by me.  But there are exceptions.  For example, this morning.  I slept plenty of hours, there was no place I had to be by 8 a.m, no rush to […]

Oh, yes, my friends.  Sometimes the fortune just smiles upon you.  And things work out the way you never thought they would.  But much better.  Hundred times better.  We are talking, blog-worthy better.  We are talking good pictures, and good recipe at the same time.  On the same day.  And even your five-year-old volunteering to […]

Growing up, among my favorite books one could find a collection of poetry for children by Polish authors.  It was wonderfully translated into Russian by various talented Russian writers.  I loved many of the poems and you could hear me reciting some of them quite frequently.

If you ever invested your time and energy cooking anything French classic, you probably noticed that the best things always have the least number of components.  For example, classic Boeuf Bourguignon only has five or six ingredients,  it’s the method that brings forth the most flavor and makes this the best tasting (and looking) stew you’ll ever […]

If I had to name one dish that immediately recalls childhood for me, it would be this one.  Stuffed cabbage rolls called Holubtzi in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and possibly other Slavic languages, invariably bring back memories of my Kindergarten.  You see, in our Kindergarten they fed us breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner, all cooked on […]