I’ve done this article before, but it’s worth repeating. With backyard chefs bearing tongs and spatulas and heading for the grill, here’s my take on how to make the Perfect Burger. Be forewarned. This isn’t a recipe for the healthiest burger, just the tastiest. You really wouldn’t want to serve a steady diet of these burgers unless you had a death wish, but at least once this summer, indulge … [Read more...]

It’s summer – time for tuna fish salad piled high on a bed of lettuce or better yet, ladled thickly on some white bread as the centerpiece of a great sandwich. But instead of plain, old tuna salad, why not go first class and make white albacore salad? Albacore is known as white tuna while the other tunas, yellowfin, skipjack or big-eye are in the “light tuna” category. The albacore is found … [Read more...]

About a month ago, I saw a box of Blueberry Muffin Mix from Krusteaz, and knowing I had a bunch of extra blueberries, I bought the mix, added some fresh blueberries and the muffins were delicious. This week, I saw that Krusteaz made a Banana Nut Muffin Mix, and I put that in my grocery cart. My wife, Nancy, particularly enjoys muffins. Three days a week, she is up at 4:30 and off to the gym. … [Read more...]

I was a bachelor for three days last week as my wife Nancy abandoned me to spend time with her sisters-in-law in Jacksonville. She had a great time and I had some great meals. When Nancy goes out of town, it gives me the opportunity to cook some of my favorite dishes – things she finds objectionable. Things like veal. When Nancy was a little girl, her family lived on a cattle farm and she … [Read more...]

At some point during the life of an average man – and assuming the average man does a little cooking – it will become necessary to boil an egg. Boiling an egg is not rocket science. You put the egg in some boiling water, give it about ten minutes and you have yourself a hard-boiled egg. Hard-boiled eggs are useful in dishes like deviled eggs, which are really not all that appetizing unless the … [Read more...]

I found myself with an entire quart of fresh blueberries. I had planned on making my “Blueberry Stuff” cobbler for company, but changed my mind. Then, to think that my wife Nancy and I would have to eat all that cobbler by ourselves – with weigh gain to follow - I decided to make a few blueberry muffins instead, using half of the blueberries. Prowling through the baking aisle at Kroger’s, a box of … [Read more...]

What if I invited you to dinner and said we were having ‎”Foies de Volaille.” That sounds good, you may say. But what if I said we are actually having chicken livers. Maybe not so good, you might respond. Folks either love “‎Foies de Volaille” or they hate them. When it comes to chicken livers, there is no middle ground. If you happen to enjoy ‎”Foies de Volaille”, I stumbled across an … [Read more...]

Summer is grilling time – burgers, dogs, steaks, chicken, ribs, green beans. Green beans? Why not? Start with fresh green beans and make sure they are not those that are seemingly coated in a light film of wax. That’s some kind of preservative and those beans taste like – well, bad stuff. Get fresh, crisp string beans, about 8 whole beans per serving. After washing the beans, dry them on a … [Read more...]

A recipe does not have to be fancy in order to be good. In fact, sometimes the simplest and easiest recipes are the best. Such is the case with chicken breasts. Recently, my wife Nancy went to the store, as I was on my way home from a trip. We have been trying to eat healthy and therefore eat a lot of chicken, so she picked up some skinless chicken breasts, but she bought the thin cut, not the … [Read more...]

This past week, I ate the best chicken sandwich I have ever put in my mouth. It was moist, succulent, full of flavor and tender beyond description. It came from a breast of a chicken which I had previously cooked “spatchcock style.” Originally, the word spatchcock meant a young, male chicken, but somehow the term came to signify a method of preparing a chicken, by removing the entire backbone, … [Read more...]