If there is one item that puts Ukrainian cookery on the map of International Yum, that would be borscht.  I would love to tell you that there are poems and songs written about it, borscht cook-offs and Borschtfests are held around the world, but, sadly, I can’t report any of this; apparently the rest of […]

Are you sick of the squash yet? You know what I am talking about — the abundant never-ending crop of zucchini and yellow crook-necks have most certainly made it to your kitchen by hook or by crook.  If you didn’t plant it this year — I didn’t — one or more of your neighbors or […]

Summer is here.  Suddenly we notice the change in our taste — we crave lighter dishes, we see more vegetables in our fridge and on our plate, we sip iced drinks, and I don’t know about you, but I am just not in the mood for elaborate dinner cooking marathons. Summer laziness sets in. To […]

Chakhokhbili. I can’t blame you if your first urge was to say Gesundheit when you read this.  Yes, sounds a lot like a sneeze, and for some people it is very hard to pronounce.  Khokhobi in Georgian means pheasant.  Traditionally this dish was made with pheasant, but chicken took its rightful place right next to pheasant because […]

Spring is almost, almost, almost here.  Folks all over the place are visiting their local gardening supply centers, deep discount stores piled up mulch and compost outside their doors, and weather is dig-in-the-dirt friendly more days than it’s not.  Don’t know about you, but I have already caught the gardening bug and got started on […]

I rarely post about breakfast items.  Probably because I rarely fuss over breakfast.  Our breakfasts are just a merry-go-round of hearty usual suspects, bouncing between oatmeal porridge, spinach omelette, fried eggs with ham or bacon and toast, and occasionally a big helping of fruit and vegetable smoothie.  All I care about is the quality of the […]

Many vegetables happily serve as containers for tasty stuffing — peppers, squash, eggplants cut in half and scooped out will serve as boat-shape stuffing vessels… Some require a bit of work to be turned into containers, say, cabbage or brussels sprouts. But some of them just seem to be waiting to be used as containers, […]