Green Papaya Salad

My friends Harry and Maew at the Simmons Family Farms are one-of-a-kind organic farmers. In addition to standard crops like greens, tomatoes, and peppers, they also grow many unusual vegetables and herbs like Thai basil, Chinese broccoli, and even papaya. This past week I was lucky enough to grab a green papaya from their stand…

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Creamed Spinach Recipe: Old Lady Recipes # 1

Creamed Spinach Truthfully, I can not state that I’ve ever had creamed spinach made by an actual Old Lady. But it’s one of the recipes that I lump into that category of my brain along with creamed onions, liver and onions, and gelatin salads. All of which are delicious. (Except maybe liver and onions; although…

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Carrots and Chickpeas

Has this ever happened to you? The other night I got experimental (a.k.a. “confused”) while I was cooking. Suddenly I realized my Greek-style meatballs were morphing into Middle-Eastern-style meatballs and then my kale turned kind of Italian-style when I wasn’t looking and then I decided I wanted a carby-side dish and I had some carrots…

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Demon Eyes! (Pickled Deviled Eggs) Plus How to Boil Eggs

Pickled Deviled Eggs Recipe Video (scroll down for printable recipe) Deviled eggs have been around since the dawn of mayonnaise, I believe. They are called “deviled eggs” because they’re a little spicy and the devil probably likes spicy food because he lives in Hell where it’s really, really hot. Devil also is real big into…

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How to Make Kimchi

My maternal grandmother gets most of the credit for broadening my palate and introducing me to strange things that I probably would never have tasted otherwise, or at least not until I was much older. She fed my brother and me things like nori sheets toasted with parmesan, curried pumpkin seeds, spicy dried mango, Swiss…

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Indian Spiced Vegetable Medley

If you can call a motley crew of vegetables culled from the depths of the crisper drawer and all cooked together until one knows not where one ends and another begins because they are all beautifully melded with spicy chilies, cilantro, and homemade* garam masala powder a “medley”, then that is what I had for…

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Fried Okra

I am sad, y’all. These apocalyptic wildfires that are eating up my sweet home state are making me sad. This week I’m moving things out of my grandma’s house, just in case. Just in case a huge massive blaze of oxidation should sweep a few miles westward or northward, or from any direction really, and…

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Yucca Fries and Raisin Ketchup!

I’ve been broadening my horizons. I’ve been trying new things. I’ve been buying all those unusual vegetables I’ve never bought before. And I’ve got two words for you. Yucca Root. Here’s two more: Eat It. Why? ‘Cause it’s fuckin’ yummy-as-hell. How? I’ll tell you right now. From the outside, yucca (or yuca?) roots are brown…

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