Have you had some culinary breakthroughs lately?  Was there some process you couldn't bring yourself to abandon, but couldn't quite perfect, either?  Last week I wrote about how I kept toting dried beans home from the grocery store, even though I wasn't very good at cooking them, and then finally, I read a cookbook that taught me how to simmer a tasty pot of beans.  That's basically the story of my...

Good food preserves memories.  It pins down moments.  It brings comfort and cheer. Several years ago, when I happened to be interviewing an Asian woman who worked at Chicago's South-East Asia Center, she mentioned that one of the first things new Southeast Asian immigrants will usually do is find a restaurant that makes food like the food from their home country and region.  Even if they have to travel far...

Every Black Friday, my husband’s family had the tradition of going Christmas tree shopping. We’d wake up at a reasonable hour (reasonable, that is, for Black Friday), mosey over to the Christmas tree farm together and each pick out that perfect tree for our family’s Christmas décor. Then afterward, we’d enjoy a delicious lunch of turkey sandwiches piled high with turkey, cheese and cranberry sauce. (Check out some of our...

Last week my husband David offered to do the grocery shopping for us, not knowing that I had tasked him with finding sweet potatoes – not yams, sweet potatoes. He was up for the challenge of doing this (in a foreign country, no less!) and succeeded in finding the biggest sweet potatoes I’ve every seen from our local organic market. This week I went to pick out some more, but...

I don't remember liking sweet potatoes until one year when I was in middle school.  Middle school is all about reinventing yourself, right?  It's about wearing layers of friendship bracelets, trying on your friends' glasses to see how you look in them, getting that atrocious haircut you'd hoped would rocket you to popularity.  And so maybe it's about trying out different kinds of food and seeing what you really like,...

Next week, I will get to celebrate my first “North American Thanksgiving” celebration across the ocean from North America in France. I have been tasked with bringing a salad and a sweet potato dish, so I began looking over the repertoire of recipes that have already been shared on this blog. I came across this sweet potato dish, which first introduced me to the delectable chimichurri sauce, a garlic-and-herb-rich sauce...

Autumn ushers in a time to indulge in pumpkin desserts, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin ale and all things pumpkin.  I'm already craving the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies a friend is making for a party this evening.  But even as I feast upon pumpkin everything, I want to make sure I'm still: a) making healthy choices, and b) enjoying some of my favorite main course meals. A recipe-find earlier this week, for...

Autumn is a time to gather. Summer's heat lets up but the days remain sunny and energizing. Crisp air calls us outside. The harvest produces some of its tastiest fruits and vegetables. And we know that since winter will soon make us want to hibernate, buried under fleece blankets to match the blankets of snow, it's time to seize our chance and spend time with friends. And of course, autumn...

Autumn collects synonyms.  It's already the only season with two interchangeable names, and from there, its monikers multiply.  It's also known as pumpkin season, apple season, cider season and more.  But how long has autumn been known as the season for all kinds of pumpkin-spiced food and beverages, from pumpkin lattes to pumpkin ravioli to pumpkin ales and more?  Do we owe it to Starbucks, which first introduced its pumpkin...

This past weekend, my husband and I had a few friends over for a couple hours in the evening, so, naturally, I made dessert.  I even planned ahead and made this dessert, some toffee bars, the day before and stuck them in the fridge.  The only problem?  I forgot to cut them them before refrigerating them.  About 45 minutes before our company arrived, I pulled the bars out of the...

Heirloom pumpkins are each varieties of squash, but they tend to be larger than “winter squash” and more unique and elegant than traditional orange pumpkins. Most heirlooms are great for cooking and make great pies, soups and more. A few, however, are not recommended for cooking and we hope to help you sort that out here! But all heirloom pumpkins are beautiful and unique and make great decorations. The following...

Some farmers have farming in their blood.  Knowledge of agriculture and of the joys, hardships and value of farming have been passed down through generations, and the family tradition continues.  Increasingly, however, people who have not grown up on farms are learning to homestead, raise livestock and grow produce for their communities.  They want to know what the farmers on second, third and fourth generation farms know: How their food...

Apple season means apple cider season, apple fritter season, and of course apple pie season.  For aspiring bakers, apple pie season can be a frustrating time indeed.  I've been known to put my hands on my hips and glare at a pie crust that just won't stop sticking to the counter and ripping.  And I know I'm not alone.  At the Wolff's Apple House cooking demonstration last Tuesday, some of...

The Wolff family loves produce of all flavors, shapes and stripes.  They not only know the farmers who grew the produce, they also know all you would ever want to know about the local produce itself: how it grows, the varieties you can find it in and when they ripen, how this year's crop differs from past years' and, of course, what each variety tastes like. Apples were the start...

I like to think that I am a great cook and a good gardener, but there is much more to these two tasks than meets the eye. This week I will be harvesting the last of the squash, tomatoes, peppers and herbs from my first-ever solo garden. I will miss harvesting armloads of tomatoes, handfuls of jalapenos, fistfuls of root vegetables and bouquets of basil, cilantro and parsley. The garden...

A few summers ago, my cravings for iced coffee got the best of me. I knew that the best way to make iced coffee was to cold brew a serving of it specifically for that purpose, but it was so much easier to just refrigerate a mug of the morning's leftover coffee. That usually worked at home, when everyone knew to watch for the uncovered cup of coffee on the...

How wonderful are Labor Day vacations?  They snag the last bits of summer, salvaging time with family and friends before the rush of fall schedules pulls us in different directions.  They celebrate cooler weather and golden sunlit evenings.  They offer rest. When I was growing up, Labor Day was our favorite family vacation time.  We reshuffled our homeschooling schedule and headed to a lake outside Poestenkill, NY to be "away...

If you've visited the prepared foods section at Wolff's Apple House and seen delicacies like Apple BBQ Pulled Pork, Roasted Chicken Romaine Salad, Best Broccoli Salad and hummus in all kinds of flavors, then you know that we have an innovative, committed chef.  Chuck Smith, the chef at Wolff's, has developed our mouth-watering, nutritious prepared foods menu using ingredients from our store. When you hear him talk about working at...

I might as well mark my calendar.  Every three to six months, the urge to make empanadas hits me.  Usually some excuse or inspiration materializes: a friend is visiting from out of town, we're about to watch a Spanish film or I've just been to Zumba and I'm still feeling the Latin rhythms.  Once the urge strikes, there's no stopping it until these savory meat pies are on the table....

When my sister mentioned earlier this week that chicken cacciatore means "The Hunter's Meal," I knew I had to try making it again.  I'd first tried my hand at it when I was 22, a grad student freshly uprooted from family, cooking my way through the one cookbook I trusted.  Sometimes good things in life happen at the wrong time and slip by unappreciated.  Likewise, chicken cacciatore was a good...

  Knowing that I wanted to make a ginger-watermelon salad later today, I woke up with questions about ginger dancing in my head: When did people first try using ginger as a spice?  When did they figure out the knobby root was edible? When did gingerbread become a thing? When and why did the baby name (and nickname) "Ginger" come into vogue?  I mean, Cinnamon, Tarragon and Cardamom never became...

In elementary school, I had a friend whose mom would make waffles for lunch.  Ricotta-cheese-stuffed waffles, topped with strawberries and maple syrup. I loved going to this friend's house.  It was a magical world.  Outside, in the corner of their yard, you ducked under some wild rosebushes to reach a trail that led over a creek and into a clearing where we could walk or run or throw a ball...

This morning, Marie Connell of MyHouse Cookies stood in her kitchen surrounded by tomatoes as she prepared to make quiches. "I know the farmer," she told me about the tomatoes, "I know she picked them this morning.  I know they haven't been sitting in a truck or a railway car for a week."  If Marie knows the farmer and finds out about their farming methods, she knows the produce "will...

During the summer, refreshing beverages call to us.  Whether it's during a picnic, after yard work or at a sporting event, eventually we start to crave a cold, flavorful beverage.  Preferably a fizzy one. But we know how bad sugary sodas are for us.  They've been linked to obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease and can weaken bones, according to the Harvard School of Public Health.  Just one cup...

Last week, Sørina Higgins shared her story of her husband's illness.  She wrote: "My husband struggled to go to work every day and came home completely wiped out. Construction on our handmade house ceased. Travel plans were canceled."  Even when a specialist finally got to the root of the problem, Sørina's husband still had weakened immune and digestive systems and couldn’t eat without nausea and pain.  To remedy this, the Higginses...

I wonder when Hippocrates—or whoever it really was—said “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food,” whether he meant it literally. Perhaps he meant something more fuzzy, like “eat good food for better health.” Or maybe he did mean it in the plainest possible sense: “When you are sick, use food to cure yourself; when you are well, eat good food to prevent sickness.” Whichever he meant, over...

  The seasoned gardener knows that tomato plants yield a lot of tomatoes. However, when planting a garden with some friends who have a large plot of land, we thought, "why not plant 48 tomato plants?" Needless to say, by the end of the summer we had already canned all of the marinara sauce and salsa we needed for the year and the tomatoes still kept on coming. Earlier that summer...

With Father's Day just around the corner, many people start to think about treating their dads to meat cooked on the grill.  This time of year, the weather is just right for gathering the family for a picnic and grilling tender, flavorful burgers, with the smell of a barbeque wafting on the breeze.  Just over a month ago, Wolff's Apple House began offering all-natural, free-range beef from Lone Star Farm,...

I am pretty sure the first time I ever ate rice pudding was at camp, as a counselor, at around age 17.  That the adults in charge let 17-year-olds be camp counselors is one of the mysteries of my adult life.  Adult life, though, has solved one other mystery.  I now know why a magical food like rice pudding would be served as "camp food." It's filling, for one thing. ...

Back in April, Linda Johnson, Wolff's Garden Center Manager, told me that even before she began working at Wolff's, she came here to pick out her herbs.  “You could have a field day going through here and thinking about your herb garden,” says Johnson. A few weeks ago, we asked YOU what you planted after you came to Wolff's Apple House and had a field day thinking about your garden. ...

10. Leeks are versatile and can easily swap with onions in any recipe, but their flavor is mild, earthy and unique.  Leeks are in the same family as garlic and onions (and, for that matter, lilies!), so they have a bulb shape that might look familiar, even if you've never prepared leeks before. 9.  Leeks are HUGE... ideal for feeding a crowd!  Many recipes call for the bulb part while...

Whenever I have a chance to teach English courses, I like to talk about cliches.  "What are some of your favorite cliches?" I ask.  "Or some of the most bewildering?"  We write them down.  "Now, how can we freshen them up?  Make them more unexpected?" Cliches got their start because someone came up with a spot-on description or catchy saying, and it stuck (even if it makes no sense whatsoever...

I have a lot of memories of bringing my mom breakfast in bed on Mother's Day.  Those childhood memories tell me that my siblings and I must have accomplished this every single year, arranging a tray with an orange juice glass, a mug of coffee, a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, and a bowl with loads of fresh fruit.  Every year, we must have knocked all the dishes together...

I first discovered frittatas a few years ago when I needed to use up some fresh sage.  Sage, with its leaves like Lamb's-Ear, seemed fancy enough for Martha Stewart, so I turned to Martha Stewart's Healthy Quick Cook, a treasure my  aunt had given me for Christmas years earlier, and discovered a lovely sage-mushroom frittata.  There was just one hurdle to clear first: could my nonstick cookware survive the oven? ...

When I moved to Chicago in 2005, long-time Chicagoans warned me that during the winter, gray clouds take over the sky and remain there basically until April, as if a giant lid covers the city.  There are a few day-to-day exceptions, but on the whole, this means that from December to the end of March, the city looks grayish and wrung-out, drained of color.  Then in April, sunshine begins again...

Preparing a holiday meal is joyous and generous.  With good music playing, spicy aromas filling the room, and friends or family members playing sous-chef and line cooks, the preparations are often as much fun as the meal itself.  That fun can be even more relaxing with some prep done beforehand, so here's a cauliflower side dish prepared in several stages over a couple of days that comes together so easily...

Some people grow up surrounded by fresh herbs.  They watch, or help, as their parents grow herbs, chop herbs and garnish dishes with soft handfuls of basil, oregano, parsley or sage. Other people discover the magic of fresh herbs later in life, and meals are never the same afterward.  Discovering fresh herbs marks a turning point for any cook.  Suddenly, every dish has more taste than ever seemed possible! Still...

Nan Reinert of Chubby Pickle Farm in Robeson Township, Berks County, is always happy to help others learn about smarter and more efficient ways to garden, knowing quite well just how stressful this therapeutic effort can become if you take on too much. “I am passionate about growing and getting people to grow,” she says about her green goals.  While Reinert uses the charmingly named Chubby Pickle Farm as a...

It looks like March will be going out like a lamb after all, although I can't help but think most of the lambs in the Delaware Valley will be huddled under shelters away from the rain instead of chowing down in the pasture. Sigh.  It's not too hard to sympathize with a sheep who's been in the barn too long.  Do sheep daydream about eating fresh clover or some texture-food...

It can be easy to go along in life expecting each day to be similar to the one before.  The alarm goes off at the same time each morning, I brew coffee in the French press, simmer some oatmeal, read for a bit and then get to work.  I expect the coffee and oatmeal to taste about the same, I anticipate that the reading will start the day off right,...

For much of my adult life, I have lived in Chicago, where St. Patrick's Day lasts basically all March long and we're so excited about the holiday that we dye the Chicago River green.  There's plenty to get excited about with this holiday, and Americans have celebrated it heartily since Colonial Days: since 1737 to be exact. Among the abundance of St. Patrick's Day traditions that has taken hold in...

Wolff's is starting to blossom, and pansies are always the first flower we feature.  Soon we will plant a row of these flowers along the roadside leading up to Wolff's, and Linda Johnson, our plant and nursery manager, is planning to plant pansies at her home this weekend.  Linda explains why pansies make her happy and gives advice on how to keep pansies at their happiest, too. Celebrating Pansies Pansies...

What is it that makes comfort food so comforting?  Is it indulging in food that tastes so good it must be bad for you?  Is it the warmth of the food itself?  (Clearly not, or a bowl of fudge brownie ice cream would not be quite so comforting!)  Is it the memories associated with the food itself? If it is the memories, then Sweet Potato Quesadillas are comforting to me...

Meals that I made when I moved into my first apartment stay in my memory and remain my favorites.   Frying up an omelet and adding anything I had on hand-- caramelized onions, tomatoes, sometimes even corn or black beans-- was a sign not just of creativity but of independence.  Being resourceful meant that I was making it on my own. Soon, I began to cook recipes from home.  I replicated...

My house feels chilly when I wake up on winter mornings.  The radiators huff and grumble and squeal, but they can't quite keep up with the frigid temperatures outside. This calls for a good cup of coffee and a hearty, comforting breakfast.  I want something warm and soothing but healthy.  Oatmeal answers to this description, and if I need to give it some more flavor, I mix up a fruit...

In the winter, I make soup.  When the winter as is long and relentless as it has been this year,  I find comfort wherever I can.  In many mugs of peppermint tea or cinnamon tea.  In cozying up under a warm blanket and reading a good novel.  In watching an exciting TV series straight through, many episodes per night, so that the winter evenings seem to pass more quickly. Making...

I have to admit, it's been a long while since I've felt like sunbathing, and I feel like I'm running low on Vitamin D, that vitamin so renowned for strengthening bones as it helps the body absorb calcium.  If you haven't felt much like picnicking in the snow and soaking up sunshine, there's good news for both of us because mushrooms are a great source of Vitamin D, along with...

Dinnertime and the Olympics were the two main events I looked forward to as a kid.  The time between Olympics seemed interminable.  Four years?!  I'd hardly even lived that long.  When the winter Olympics came on TV, my siblings and I skated around our living room in our sneakers and did pirouettes, arabesques and flying leaps.  One year, we were so inspired we took a boom box down to a...

With much respect given to what farms are to us, director and producer Richard Power Hoffmann is proud to bring the premiere of his film Watermelon Magic to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J. this week. The Hoffmann Family resides in Media, Delaware County and is known to frequent Wolff’s Apple House for corn, apples, Pequea Valley Farm yogurt and sometimes even watermelons. In the 30-minute film released...

With temperatures hovering in the single digits and teens for several days the past week, I started to crave warm foods like lots and lots of tea and hot soup. One of my favorite soups is both temperature-hot and just a little bit spicy-hot. This Mexican dish goes by many names: Spicy Salsa Soup, Tortilla Soup (if you add tortillas in the end), Southwestern Tomato Soup...and the list goes on....

Every New Year, I spend some time reviewing my budget from the previous year and generally making some resolutions about food: cook at home more so that I can eat out less, waste less food with better meal planning and consume more vegetable and whole-grain rich foods. The problem is that without a good plan or source of recipes, plans like this tend to fail. So I'm excited that I...

Spicy appetizers and herb-savvy drinks for jazzing your way into the New Year are right at your fingertips with a few of Phoebe Canakis' New Year's Eve recipes. Canakis is the name behind Phoebe's Pure Food, where she celebrates local and healthy eats through her blog, magazine, and online pantry as well as new blogging for Berks County Living Magazine. Her food wisdoms and efforts are based in Lancaster County....

During the Christmas season, we enjoy the presence of people we love.  Talking, laughing, listening, enjoying comfortable silences--all of this is what it means to enjoy each others' presence at Christmastime.  It is a time to rest, relax, and linger over laughter, conversation, and appetizers.  That means, of course, that for some of the people we love (or even for us), Christmas will be a time of joyous flurry in...

One of the best Christmas presents I have ever received was a cardboard box full of food:  maple cured bacon and three different kinds of jam made from apples and berries grown in a backyard garden.  My husband and I were away from our families for the holiday, and waking up and frying that bacon—the salty smell of it filling the kitchen—whipping up some crepes, and spreading sweet homemade jam...

Greenery known so well in December is ready to become cozily arranged local decor in your home. Wolff's Apple House can help with that, especially if you're looking for Christmas trees with the best quality and Pennsylvania-growing in the history of their trunks and needles. Christmas trees at Wolff's are sourced from Hill Farms in Lehighton, Carbon County and Hill View Farm in Middleburg, Snyder County. These trees are known...

Soups and other prepared foods are something you can easily pick up at Wolff's Apple House to suit colder-season temperatures as they make their way into chillier months. And these are also great around holidays, thankfully. Wolff's own chef, Chuck Smith, reflects thoughtfully on the value of soups before and into winter. "Soups in general are well-suited for autumn because they require longer cooking times on a burner rather than...

The Wolff family has many favorite recipes and most of them they have graciously shared right here on their website. When I began searching for a stuffing recipe for this Thanksgiving, Wolff's trusted recipe collection was the first place I looked. And since I'm going to be spending a good amount of time in the kitchen over the next 24 hours, I decided to save myself a step and omit...

Thanksgiving is a day when many pots are bubbling on the stove, cutting boards are strewn across counter tops, the fragrance of herbs lingers on the cook’s hands, and a tasting spoon always produces delicious samples.  This creative chaos itself is an occasion for gratitude.  As we boil, chop, grate, and mash, we partake in the bounty of flavors, textures, and tastes that the harvest has offered. The creative chaos...

One year my family went out for Thanksgiving dinner. Never again! The stuffing tasted funny, they ran out of pumpkin pie, and worst of all, there were NO leftovers to break out the next day! It felt like Thanksgiving never happened! That year, I realized there are certain flavors our family expects at Thanksgiving. It's not a day to experiment. Nope, we love our traditions--turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green...

In the month of all things turkey, Wolff's Apple House carries fresh farm-raised turkeys from Esbenshade Turkey Farm in Paradise, Lancaster County. The Esbenshade Family has been raising turkeys since 1858 and with that fact in mind is the oldest turkey farm in the country. Wolff's own chef, Chuck Smith, says he feels great knowing that the farm market sources locally-raised turkeys from a family farm in Southeastern Pennsylvania. "Wolff's...