Food Friday: Eskimo Ice Cream

Recently, I've had the opportunity to do some traveling and as part of that traveling I have sought out regional foods. Isn't that the great thing about traveling?So in Springfield, Illinois I had the Horseshoe Sandwich.The basic horseshoe is an open faced sandwich with meat, french fries and a cheese sauce. There are variations of the horseshoe including...

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Weird Little Mushrooms in Soup

After living a mile from it for a decade, I finally made a shopping trip to Jong Boo Korean Market, which I drive by often but had never set foot in. The occasion was a successful day of marketing that included the new fancy supermarket that just opened across from the Jewel, Paulina for meat and a fly-by of Andy's for some weird little cucumbers and...

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Food Friday: Depression Dinner

Probably everyone has an idea about how to make a low cost meal that your family will enjoy. I've seen articles addressing this topic in food magazines as well as websites and even YouTube. During difficult times like recessions, depressions and war this topic can be one of utter necessity.If you Google the phrase "Depression Dinner" you will find...

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How Popcorn Came to Matter

Heather loves popcorn. We go through phases where she needs popcorn every evening, so I make a lot of popcorn. When I was a kid, my mom made popcorn with olive oil and butter as the frying medium. Timing was critical, because if the fire was too hot or the popcorn didn't come off the fire precisely when it was done popping, the butter solids burned...

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Burdock What the Hell is Burdock

Like most people, the only time I ever come across burdock root is watching episodes of the original Japanese Iron Chef. They seem to throw burdock in everything they boil, and having eaten my share of Japanese food, I'm pretty sure I've eaten it, but I couldn't tell you what it tastes like and couldn't identify its flavor blindfolded. While at Mitsuwa...

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Food Friday: The Congressional Club Cook Book 1961

Antique stores hold family history. Yes, much of what you will find is not the record of an individual family's life but more of a documentation of what our collective families used over time, in different time periods. But in some cases antique stores sell items that do name names and document an individual's life. These are items like postcards,...

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Homemade Cheese to Garnish Sausage and Peppers

Making cheese is way more daunting than bread. Bad bread, whatever, it's still bread. Bad cheese could end up a weird moldy science experiment that stinks like rotting garbage and cures syphilis. Nevertheless, despite not really knowing how, I thought I'd give it a shot. When I was a kid, my mom made a kind of farmers' cheese by curdling milk...

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