My mother was a frugal food shopper. She bought fresh, healthy ingredients, but counted every penny. She bought only one kind of cereal, one kind of cracker, and no dessert. There was one kind of cheese as well – sharp, store brand cheddar. It was great for open-faced cheese sandwiches toasted under the broiler, and for cheese and crackers, and helped me develop a taste for cheese.

When I became an adult I indulged in exploring other kinds of cheeses, but I must have inherited the frugal gene because I balked at paying $10 and $14 a pound. Now I find that I am thinking about cheese in a different way. I’m thinking about the kind of milk that goes into the cheese, the texture and flavorings, and I am thinking about ways to make my own cheese. It seems to me that the combination of healthier ingredients and lower cost is a winning one. (more…)

Here’s my football story and it’s no exaggeration. Just out of college, I moved to California and got a job at Stanford University’s math department. On my way into the office one morning, I was physically assaulted by a strange woman because I was wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh sweater. She actually grabbed my arm – hard – swung me around, pressed her nose against mine, and hissed, “I suppose you think you’re pretty funny, wearing that!” After a lot of confusion and explanations, it turned out that Stanford’s football team was facing their rivals, the University of California Golden Bears, the next day in The Big Game. She half-kiddingly suggested I lose the shirt. Shaken, I stumbled into my office to find about a million red-and-white iced cupcakes and a notice to put them out for the office pep rally that afternoon, sponsored by the grad students. Jeez, even the nerds were football fanatics. That day marked the beginning of my hate-affair with football. (My only consolation: Stanford lost, 21-14.) (more…)

The days are shorter and cooler – it’s sausage-making time! The Chaucuterie: Homemade Sausage workshop is coming up on October 19. It’s one of a couple of do-it-yourself classes we’re offering this fall. We already encourage our students to make their own fresh ricotta cheese, jellies, and chutneys. Why not try your hand at this ancient craft of food preservation? We’ll be making fresh sausage and smoked sausage, using the traditional pork and some not-so-traditional ingredients – like seafood. If you’ve never had a seafood sausage, well, wake up, honey!

The idea of natural casings may be a turn off, but you don’t even have to involve them in the process. The sausage mixture, or forcemeat, can be formed into patties or made without casing, as I do in this recipe. (It’s going on Chuck’s pizza.) If you have a food processor, you can even forgo the meat grinder. (more…)

I used to do a lot more canning and preserving when we lived on our “farmette” in Royalston, MA. We had a very large garden, dwarf fruit trees, an asparagus bed, Christmas tree plot, and a rhubarb patch. My husband kept bees and made his own beer long before it became fashionable to do so. (Back then, there were no beer-making supply stores; many supplies had to be mail-ordered, even the seeds for our pterodactyl feeder.)

Anyway, it was a time of great experimentation for me. Crock pickles, homemade root beer, sourdough starters, and lots of jams and jellies. Since I had a big freezer and no pressure cooker, I eschewed canning vegetables and stuck to fruits and pickles. I had so much stuff that big batch canning was necessary; these days, I do small-batch canning, which doesn’t require dragging out the massive canning pot. It’s easy to do a half-dozen jars in about an hour. (more…)