Call me a prude. A luddite. A curmudgeon. But what is up with geneticists who think they should change everything about food that could be construed as inconvenient?
Today while driving back from working on an upcoming Roanoke Times story and video on Big Spring Mill in Elliston, Virginia, I heard on NPR that an Australian [...]

I didn’t want to be a chef; just a cook. And my experiences in Italy had taught me why. For millennia, people have known how to make their food. They have understood animals and what to do with them, have cooked with the seasons and had a farmer’s knowledge of the way the planet works. [...]

I’m a little sheepish about tooting my own horn here, but I’m so excited I can’t keep it in.
Noted California food and wine writer Antonia Allegra informed me by e-mail last week that my Wilt sallet: rediscovering a once proud mountain tradition column won an honorable mention in the Edible Communities writing and scholarship contest [...]

1 C. (2 sticks) butter, brought to room temperature
2 C. sugar
3 large eggs
Zest and juice of one medium orange, any kind
3 C. all-purpose flour (preferably from Big Spring Mill in Elliston, Va.)
1.5 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 C. green tomatoes, finely diced
½ C. chopped dates
½ C. golden or regular raisins
1 C. [...]

Green tomato cake must be the weirdest thing I’ve ever cooked — much stranger even than the first squid I ever cleaned in 1992 in a tiny apartment kitchen in Blacksburg, Virginia. At least I had The Frugal Gourmet to coach me through that one.
So how did I get the idea to bake a green [...]