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 […]

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 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 […]

I have only one question for you people.  How did it happen that I still don’t own a tagine?  I mean, I pretty much own everything else, but not that quirky looking clay crock.  Why, would you ask, does one need to own a tagine?  And I will tell you: I tried something new yesterday, […]

This recipe was shared by my friend Tatiana, who now lives in Greece.  She swore it was a Greek recipe, but I didn’t believe her for one second.  It seems profoundly French to me in every respect — from vast quantity of onions used, to butter, to cream, to cooking in wine method, to extracting […]