On Sunday afternoons in the late 1970s, our whole clan—aunts, uncles, cousins, my parents, siblings and I—would gather for family dinner at my Nana’s restaurant in Johnston, R.I. We’d always be seated to the left of the hostess stand in the dining room, a large room with brick walls, where even at midday, the lighting was dim. …
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A good crop of farmers markets blooms this season
“It was never my intention to start a farmers market,” says Janet Terry walking around the grounds at Montgomery General Hospital as tents are raised and musicians tune their instruments. However, every Sunday from Mother’s Day until early November, 60 vendors, live music and chef demonstrations show how far the Olney Farmers & Artists …
Descendants toast centenary by reopening brewery
In 1916, the Commonwealth of Virginia passed the long-forgotten Mapp Act, which prohibited the manufacture, transport and sale of “ardent spirits” and forced the Robert Portner Brewing Co. to shut its doors. Almost 100 years have passed, but two young women are determined to honor the brewing tradition that was suspended by that piece of …
A restaurant seasoned with the unexpected
A Polish-Scandinavian menu would have been intriguing enough. But Domku Bar & Cafe, which opened in 2005 in Washington, D.C., has other features that make it noteworthy. It was the first sit-down eatery to open in Petworth, an African-American working-class neighborhood, in three decades. Its menu features Polish and Scandinavian dishes, two cuisines found nowhere …
Manning the stove at Italian social club
In the Italian home, the kitchen was traditionally a woman’s domain, and it was no different in my house when I was growing up. My parents are both Italian immigrants who moved to Queens, N.Y., with their families in the 1960s. When they married, they comfortably settled into their prescribed roles: my father worked (and …
Jam-ming to a theme learned at grandma’s knee
It’s mid-winter 1969 and I’m toasting an English muffin in our avocado and sun-gold kitchen in Denver. English muffins are new to me, but that’s not the exciting part. As a 9-year-old, what’s really got my saliva glands going is that I have a new vehicle for my Grandma Stehly’s red currant jelly, which I’m also …
‘Key West Cook Book’ offers more than recipes
“It is morning – sunlight already brilliant on coral roadway and garden wall … an emerald lizard stalks his prey on the palm … The patio is still shady, so put a pale green cloth on the old iron table, and let me bring you some chilled papaya, your morning coffee Havana style if you …
Sandor Katz wants you to get back to fermenting
In 1993, Sandor Katz moved from New York City, where he was a self-described “policy wonk,” to Cannon County, Tenn.,where he says he became a “fermentation revivalist.” He may be making headway, because fermentation has become quite trendy. Since 2003, when his book “Wild Fermentation” was published, he has taught workshops in the U.S. and Europe …
Tapping trees and collecting memories
Whenever I think of maple syrup, I smell diesel. When I was about a year old in the mid-’70s, my father bought an old farmhouse on a 200-acre stretch of woodlands in Greene, a blip of a town in the far reaches of New York state just northeast of Binghamton. It was an escape …
My Italian Wok
I’m squarely an Italian cook. I crave puttanesca, dream of ribollita and would have carried a bouquet of zucchini flowers when I walked down the aisle last month if they were in season. Yet the pot I use most, the one that never leaves the range, is a $12 wok that I bought it in …
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