Owing to its place in the calendar, Father’s Day has evolved into a major grilling holiday. That means dads all over the country are celebrated with steaks, when maybe some dads really want something a little sweet for their special day. If you have that kind of dad in your […]
Whether it’s for long-term storage, sweet treats, or prep for a long hike, drying foods is a great way of not just preserving food by extending its shelf life, but also reducing their size and weight for efficient storage or carrying. There are multiple techniques for drying and dehydrating foods. […]
Like a lot of my fellow chef instructors here at the CIA, food is my life, but it is not my whole story. Before I was a chef, I was a professional jai alai player both in my home country of France and here in the United States. Jai alai […]
In baking, every step matters—from mixing to baking, but just as importantly, cooling! While we often romanticize baked goods fresh from the oven, most baked items like cakes (and yes, breads!) are best once cooled. Baking is a series of chemical and physical reactions spurred by the heat of the […]
An herbalist friend of mine once told me that most people experience the natural world as a “wall of green.” It’s pretty, there are lots of different shades and textures, it makes us feel good, and we can appreciate our experience within it. But it is not until we start […]
It’s a fact that Americans love eating Chinese food. There are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S.; there are more Chinese restaurants than McDonald’s. You can probably name a favorite Chinese restaurant and a dish or two you love. It is also a fact that many cooks feel intimidated […]
Early in the semester, CIA students in my Food Writing course read “On Chicken Tenders,” by Helen Rosner, published in 2015 in Guernica. In this amusing but sincere defense of a derided, children’s menu staple, Rosner effectively argues against those who look down on ordering, eating, and celebrating the “perfect” […]
If you are lucky enough to spend time on our Hyde Park, New York campus, you might see the occasional green chef’s coat winding its way through campus. That could just be me, on my way to work as chef-instructor in The Menus of Change Kitchen, where our motto is, […]
Dying colorful Easter eggs is such a fun craft (yes, for adults, too!), but if you aren’t a fan of store-bought artificial dyes, you may have been avoiding it. But, like, everything, there’s a way to use food to make the experience better! Namely, making your own dyes from colorful […]
“If it grows together, it goes together.” This is the wisdom passed to me by my grandfather when we were harvesting squash, green beans, and tomatoes from his garden over 20 years ago (probably even 30 years ago, actually, but who’s counting!). He was referring to the idea that produce […]
On normal days I meet with my students in classrooms or gardens. I’m a Professor in Applied Food Studies at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, and my students are interested in sustainability and culture as well as cooking. We recreate historical recipes like Aztec amaranth cookies, […]
Or, How Grapes From a World-Famous Vineyard Ended Up In My Garage When I tell people my husband and I are garage winemakers, the first thing they say is, “So you have a vineyard?” Well, no. We do live in Napa, but our backyard is tiny. There wasn’t even room […]