Imagine your favorite cheese: perhaps an aged, sharp cheddar, or maybe a blue Gorgonzola or a gentle Monterey Jack. Wouldn't it be wonderful to use those really good cheeses you love on nachos or as a sauce on macaroni or steamed vegetables?

I have this theory about home cooks. Most of us have about 10 meals in our dinnertime repertoire, and they revolve with infuriating frequency.

Cookbook author Deborah Madison tells me fennel is in the carrot family. Its nicknames include bulb fennel, Florence fennel, and finocchio. Formally, it's Foeniculum vulgare var. Azoricum.

I'd love to have the edamame salad recipe from Backfin Blue Café. Thank you.

This is the introductory column of Stir Crazy. It ran on May 21, 2008, the Wednesday before Memorial Day.
Mon | Memorial Day
Official days of recognition have always seemed artificial to me, over-hyped opportunities for the retail industry to part us from our money. Why should my children feel they must send expensive gifts to me on Mother's Day, for example, when they express their love for me most meaningfully in their frequent phone calls …

The pages of this year's top food publication don't read like your average gourmet glossy. That's because the only trend ChopChop magazine — named publication of the year by the James Beard Foundation — cares about is how to get America's children eating healthier.
When Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby opens Friday, we'll all want to live in the Roaring Twenties.

Mon. | Meatless meal
Meaty mushrooms add bulk and earthy flavor to many vegetarian dishes including Orzo with Pecorino and Mushrooms (recipe below). This recipe calls for cremini mushrooms, which are young portobellos and sometimes labeled baby bellas. Slice them thickly to give the dish more …
Every time we have Moules à La Marinière for dinner it feels so elegant. As if we are in France, eating mussels very much the way Julia and Paul Child would have. The recipe comes, of course, from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
