This post originally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on April 5, 2006 I think it’s fair to say I would never have become a serious cook without the friendly handholding of Goods for Cooks, the venerable kitchen supply store on the west side of the courthouse square. Despite multiple changes in location and multiple…

This post originally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on March 22, 2006 We’ve all got our favorite vacation spots. Cancun wasn’t one of mine. I had been warned, of course. All the tourist books pointed out that it was, well, touristy, but the biggest disappointment was that it was so completely un-Mexican. I don’t…

This post originally appeared in the Boomington Herald Times on March 8, 2006 The Internet is a fanatic’s best friend – it helps you find all the other people in the world who are seriously obsessed with the same things you are. This can be bad if you are bent on evil ends, but it…

This post orignally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on February 22, 2006 In general, I am not one for window shopping, but when it comes to French patisseries, I’ve got my nose plastered to the glass. The displays are always breathtaking in these pastry shops – tiers of exquisite chocolates, boxed and bowed, tiny…

This post originally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on February 8, 2006 Check the thesaurus, and almost none of the synonyms for romantic are very flattering: starry-eyed, unrealistic, quixotic – and those are just the good ones, followed by emotional, maudlin, mawkish, mushy and schmaltzy. How chastening to realize that they all apply to…

This post originally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on January 25, 2006 Linda Chapman is a farmer, and her body telegraphs her outdoor life from the moment you meet her. She is tall, lithe, and strong, with her streaky gray-blond hair pulled back from a face deeply tanned in summer and her blue eyes…

This post originally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on January 11, 2006 I am the daughter of a woman for whom life holds no greater culinary pleasure than a shrimp – butterflied, battered, and crisply fried. Add a wedge of lemon, a little tartar sauce and some fried potatoes and my mom makes little…

This post originally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on December 28, 2005 Another year’s end, accompanied by that familiar, heady combination of fizzing anticipation for the fresh, untrammeled days ahead, laced with mellow, sweet nostalgia for those long gone. If there is ever a time for maudlin sentimentality, this would be it and, as…

This post originally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on December 14, 2005 I guess I am just missing the pastry gene. In general, you know, I love to cook. Working in the kitchen teases and delights my senses, filling me with joy and with solace as I dice vegetables for rich stock, breath the…

This post originally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on November 30, 2005 I’m writing this the morning after Thanksgiving, and I am still full. We had “the usual” – family standbys we wouldn’t dare replace, but with minor variations picked up over the years. The turkey is now brined and Mom’s bread stuffing features…

This post originally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on November 16, 2005 Well, I guess I am doing my job as an educator – of palates, if not of minds. “I have never put squash in my mouth before,” one of my students told me Sunday at a class dinner for which I’d made…

This post originally appeared in the Bloomington Herald Times on November 2, 2005 Africa is huge. Of course, I knew that before we left, but there is nothing like flying over it from top to bottom to make real what a map can only suggest. It took us more than 10 hours from the time…