Acquisitions

  • Winter Farmers’ Markets

      The last Tower Grove Farmers’ Market of the season has passed. With the global climate change, we still found some good tomatoes and peppers, along with what we’d expect in the autumn. The growing season is getting longer and in a few years, they’ll probably be running until just before Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, we have

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  • Doughnut Alert

    We stopped by LaMar’s Donuts the other day. It seems like we never manage to get to a doughnut shop when they’re fully stocked. On the day in question, one of the early hunter-and-gatherers had walked in and asked for 14 dozen doughnuts—and they hadn’t called ahead. (Note: This isn’t a way to make friends

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  • Artisanal Salt

    The curious shopper can find the darndest things. Selected Schnucks are carrying some interesting salts, the best known of which probably is sel gris, a sea salt that comes in large creamy flakes. Beyond that — indeed, well beyond that — are a red Hawaiian salt, called Alaea, receiving its color from the red clay

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  • To Market, To Market

    The news that the Tower Grove Farmers Market will open this weekend, and Clayton’s on May 19 cheers us and brings a smile to those who patronize it, or hope to patronize it "some day." Perhaps this month will bring that day for the latter group as the market arrives in a new location, at

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  • Puff Pastry

    In the last 20 years, things have gotten miles better for people trying to cook from a modern cookbook. Back then, one couldn’t pick up a best-selling cookbook (not that they kept separate statistics back then) and make half the recipes in it without having to substitute an ingredient or a piece of kitchen equipment

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  • Just A Thought…

    This will probably kill any image we might ever have had as serious foodies, but this t-shirt at http://www.cafepress.com/moleculargastro is pretty darn funny.

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  • Salt-packed Anchovies

    It’s no secret to those who know us well that we’re fond of anchovies. I use them often in cooking, whether chopped and thrown into a salad, used as a sauce ingredient or laid out on a pizza. And our standard anchovy has come to be the salt-packed kind. They’re often hard to find. For

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  • Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian

    Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian. Clarkson Potter, $40. 758 pp. I’m a sucker for vegetarian cookbooks. I grew up in a world of Meat, By God – even fish were somehow suspect – and canned vegetables or fresh ones cooked into sodden submission. But like a lot of St. Louisans of my generation, there was the

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