Kate Flaim (Girl Reporter)

We are back from Italy, and thoroughly exhausted. So many things in 8 days–next time we will start in the city and end in the country instead of alternating. My feet! A quicky recap of things we saw: Giant mountains as we wound sloooowly (and car-sickly) through the Dolomites: Our name everywhere in Ben’s Dad’s [...]

Do any of you get the Zingerman’s mail order catalog? When I was in preschool we lived in Ann Arbor while my Dad was in grad school, and my parents were big fans of the then-new Zingerman’s Deli. They now have an amazing mail order service, and my mom always ordered stuff from them as [...]

At my Whole Foods, at least, bone-in short ribs are on sale for $3.99/lb this week. That’s about $2 cheaper than usual. I picked up a few to freeze. Things I’ve made with short ribs: Beef-barley-leek soup Suzanne Goin’s braised short ribs (a few times) and Boeuf a la Niçoise from Sunday Suppers at Lucques.

Oh, brussels sprouts, I love you so. The one downside to the CSA was the fact that they didn’t grow (or had bad luck with) sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower last year, and since I was working my way through what they DID grow I never bought any, either. Ben actually accused me of withholding sprouts, [...]

I am unnaturally obsessed with vegetables, but even I know that most people don’t get too wound up about the root vegetables that locavores in northern climes are working their way through this time of year. I also think we should all give up on the word Rutabaga altogether, and follow the Euro lead in [...]

You know, if I were to write a parody of Real Simple and other magazines aimed at over-scheduled upper-middle-class suburban moms (and those of us who will no doubt be OSUMCSMs (catchy) in a few more years, heh) I would probably focus the food section on how rotisserie chickens are The Answer! To Everything! And [...]

Early in November I went out to Oregon for a short visit, to hang out with my family and help my mom with house stuff. Obviously, since what my family does is talk/think/obsess about and consume food, we….ate. The first night, Mom made pizza bianca (from the America’s Test Kitchen recipe, I think), and a [...]

Months ago I bookmarked a recipe on AT’s The Kitchn for oven-roasted chickpeas. Crispy! Salty! Healthy! Last night I came home well before Ben was due back, and found myself rifling through the pantry in search of a bag of snapea crisps* I was sure were lurking there. I was wrong, and I found myself [...]

Well. I inadvertently made a meal from all Trader Joe’s ingredients: That’s a Harvest Grain mix (israeli couscous, some orzo, baby garbanzo beans, quinoa), mahi mahi marinated in garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes, and a bag of baby spinach. Doesn’t that look promising? Just wait, in the finished photo it looks even better. [...]

I made a variation on this back in October (complete with stunningly ugly photo), but I thought I’d post this anyway, especially since it’s the first time I’ve used the new mini-photo studio I got for Christmas. This is a quick weeknight meal. I started with Trader Joe’s lemon pepper pappardelle, which I’d read about [...]