I love kale. I also am "thrifty" and the stalks have always been problematic for me. I've tried sauteing them until tender before adding the actual kale leaves. It's fair but not very exciting. I've also tried fermenting them but no one who tried them asked for the recipe, if you know what I mean and I think you do. This last weekend I was reading the old book, When French Women Cook, and I remembered how the answer to so many questions, often unasked, was heavy cream. So I sauteed the stems in olive oil with onions and garlic...

I almost hate to bring it up because everyone has such a strong opinion about it but normally I don't soak. Sometimes I do. I really think the best beans come from very low and slow cooking after a strong 15 minute boil. Soaking can help speed things up and some claim it helps the texture. I'm not sold, but I have no problem with people who insist on soaking, unless they say something like "soak for 24 hours". Soaked Royal Corona heirloom beans (left) and unsoaked 8 hours, and right out of the package (right). I soaked my Royal...

Earlier, I wrote about cooking on my wood-burning stove and the success I had making grits. It was simple and fun but even having given away a lot to my mother, there was still plenty left. This morning, I gently heated the grits with a little chicken stock. Meanwhile, I sauteed some chopped bacon pieces, drained the excess fat and then stirred in some leftover Black Eyed Peas. I made a bed for the pea mixture and yes, it was ugly but so delicious that I can't wait to make it again. It fills you up and I felt I...

I know there's little that's more obnoxious than a Californian complaining about the cold but here goes: This last weekend was too cold. At my place, it hit 30F. I know, it's likely to have been colder where you are but we're just not set up for this here. My place came with a wood burning stove, which is dandy when I'm at the house for long stretches but it's been a pain learning how to use it properly and it's very messy. I was almost considering getting rid of it but after this weekend, I'm thinking twice. As the...

I spent Sunday finally making a cassoulet. I’ve been curling up with Kate Hill’s Cassoulet: A French Obsession, for a week or so and finally decided to take the plunge. I will admit I’d been working myself up into a frenzy about this and now that I’ve done it, I can say in all honesty that it’s easily within anyone’s grasp to make an excellent cassoulet. I made a few compromises but it’s easy to stay within Kate’s guidelines. Well, a lot. Please don't hold it against her that I improvised so much. Her book is the real deal. The...

This was about as happy as I can get in the morning. Leftover Ayocote Negro (but Ayocote Morado or Scarlet Runners would be excellent as well), bean broth, chicken broth, cooked sausage and then an egg to poach in all the goodness. Then fresh mozzarella. Buttered toast. It was a fine morning.

In Hidalgo, a meal with my pal Lupe is essential. She is a great cook. I would almost describe her cooking as colonial. She prefers good olive oil to manteca (lard) and while she's fiercely patriotic and loves all aspects of her Mexican culture, there's a European sensibility to a lot of her dishes. When we were filming the article that featured the Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project for Sunset Magazine last year, Lupe made this dish and it's forever haunted me. She told me it was from Michoacan and called Minquiche. I've done some research and there are similar elements but...

I always laugh when I hear Alton Brown and his followers declare, as an absolute, No single purpose kitchen gadgets! When did this become a law? There are many of us who don't put up such barriers to happiness. There are many of us who go overboard and do have too many toys in the kitchen, but I've got bigger things to worry about. Alton Brown, you're not the boss of me! Of course my love of clay pot cooking is well documented and after several months, I'm still smitten with my clay rice cooker from Japan. The Kamado-san makes...

If you love beans, you want beans. You don't want a lot of other things getting in the way. But if you're making soup, you do need to do something. My answer is to fry stale tortilla strips. I know for most of us, frying isn't something we do everyday. It can be messy and if you don't use the oil again, it's seems wasteful. I have a very small cast iron skillet and it's perfect for a small bit of frying. I also have peanut oil in an old wine bottle that I keep in the fridge between uses....

My recent habit has been to make a tomato sauce with fermented green chiles and then poach an egg in it, via a small clay cazuela. I've been using my Mexican clay and it's been working like a charm. Plus, it's a delicious way to start the day. I know that not everyone has a Mexican clay mini-cazuela (what kind of world do we live in that this has to be true?) so I thought I'd practice with one of my Spanish cazuelas. I've always thought that if the clay were dark and muddy, it should be fine but if...

This beautiful little casserole has made several inspired dishes out of what were essentially leftovers. I've cooked 90% of my dishes on the stove-top and it's kind of funny discovering the oven after all these years. A gorgeous little casserole of heirloom beans, tomatoes and mushroom "carnitas" The technique for the mushrooms comes from the blog, He Cooks, She Cooks. It's not intuitive, doesn't make much sense and yet it's the most sublime technique for button mushrooms. I call it mushroom carnitas as the mushrooms cook in liquid and then fry themselves in fat after the liquid evaporates. The flavor...

Manzano chiles are also known as Peron and apparently in Oaxaca, Canario. They look like habeneros but they have much more flesh and a less tropical, but no less delicious, flavor. They are powerful but not quite as humbling as a habanero. The seeds are black and shouldn't be eaten. I've fermented the chiles and they were incredible. Every time I look at Diana Kennedy's Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy I find something different. Her recipe for Chile Canario en Pilte is simple and completely new to me. From the Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca, it's easy to like, especially...