Split Pea with Springtime

Split mung bean and pea soup with bacon, caramelized parsnip and leeks; topped with crème fraîche, shaved salt-cured duck egg yolk, and a pistou of Thai basil, cilantro, mint, dill, garlic chives, and Meyer lemon. The peas are split and fresh (English). Eat the season! …

Rigatoni with Wild Boar Ragù

Here’s a very simple and *fast!* ragù of @nicky.usa wild boar stew meat, pressure cooked with a few cloves of garlic, some minced carrot and a small onion, plus a pint of homegrown tomatoes that I put up last summer (plus Italian seasonings and S&P). …

Lamb Shank Ragu with Lemon-Ricotta Semolina Gnocchi

Over the weekend I braised Anderson Ranches lamb shanks in the velvety Turkish coffee stout that @gilgameshbrewing and @nicky.usa made with @shalomyallpdx. The only problem was that no matter how delicious and succulent that meat was, braised shanks suffer from Brown Food Problems (scroll over …

Volga German Soul Food

My beautiful homemade bierocks made it into the “Global Comfort Foods” issue of Portland Monthly, along with a little about why this humble food is so important to me. My recipe is included — please note that they’re usually seasoned only with salt and pepper, …

Gnocchi with Bison and Wild Boar Ragu

Today is “Gnocchi Thursday” at the divine @nostranapdx, but in case you’re too lazy to leave your house, this is a *really* good and very fast knockoff of their gnocchi with beef and pork ragù with red wine and parmigiano ($19). It’s Nicky Farms ground …

Black Radish Salad with Bacon

I had a couple of leftover bierocks from a shoot today (upcoming in @pomomagazine — stay tuned!), so tonight’s dinner was merely a matter of tossing together a nice little Rettichsalat mit Speck. This is just a bowl of matchstick-cut black radishes with @nueskes bacon, …

Middle Eastern Tantanmen

Another delicious bowl in my Year of Ramen™️: a Middle Eastern spin on tantanmen. Instead of a regular sesame-chile broth, I made a garlicky beef broth with toasted sesame purée and preserved lemon, topped with a ragu of ground Anderson Ranches lamb seasoned with lots …

Lemon Poppy Seed Tea Cake

There’s nothing as wonderful as citrus in the winter, is there? My recipe for this light and fragrant cake is after the jump, plus a variation to make an orange cake. Another tea cake! Lemon poppyseed, a pretty ordinary (but underappreciated) combo, improved by buttermilk …

It’s a Mystery: A History

What is up with people’s fascination with foods disguised as other things? I tackle that question in my latest piece for Taste.

Lazy Choucroute Garnis

Made easy/lazy choucroute garnis tonight with *gasp* store-bought sauerkraut that I doctored up with diced @nueskes ham, caraway seeds, juniper berries, and a spoonful of my homemade dill pickle mustard (protip: purée the garlicky, seedy dregs of your jars of pickles instead of dumping them). …