Goodbye, Summer; Hello, Fall

By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

It’s wonderful when the last waning days of summer are interspersed with cold days that snap you out of your warm weather stupor. I look forward to autumn so much that I welcome as quick an end to summer as possible. And during this season, it’s great to begin cooking slightly heartier fare than fruit-topped salads.

As with most meals I make, I took inspiration from random ingredients in my pantry that I wanted to use in some way before they went bad. This week it was sour cream, and since we also had some egg pasta lingering in the back of the pantry, the idea of making a warm and satisfying meal of stroganoff practically slapped me in the face.

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Hawai’i’s Plantation Village

By Sandy Hu
The latest from Inside Special Fork

To look at, Hawai’i is the perfect place for leisure – golden sands kissed by aquamarine waves, lush mountains and vivid tropical vegetation. But for immigrant sugar plantation laborers a century ago, it was a place of daily toil, poverty and isolation from home and family.

Back then, sugar was king and so lucrative that plantation owners imported cheap labor from around the world to build the work force they needed. Today, the cane fields are gone; labor having been priced out of the global market. The industry also suffered diminished demand as high-fructose corn syrup replaced sugar in soft drinks. Sugar plantations began to close in the 1970s and in 1995 the last operation was shuttered. Of what was a way of life for thousands of laborers, only an open-air ethnographic museum remains.

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Kale Chips

By David Hu
A new video for Video Friday

I admit I don’t like dark, leafy green veggies. So when I learned from Katie Barreira, former Special Fork cooking newbie blogger, about kale chips, I was sold! What wouldn’t taste good turned into a chip? Great taste, good nutrition and easy to boot. It’s a win-win.

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Lemon Herb Chicken & Potatoes

By Andrew Hunter
For The Family Table, a blog for busy families

How many of us spend too much time in front of a screen? Not a window screen, but a digital screen? My family and I do, so much so that sometimes we have days when screens are off limits. The boys are simply not allowed to play games or watch the tube … or um, the plasma.

This morning was one of those times when Marilyn and I were craving a low-tech day. So we played football in the yard, walked Bandit an extra few times, and played a bunch of board games that had gotten dusty in the closet.

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Going Global with Eggplant

By Lori Powell
For One or Two Bites, a blog for singles and couples

Eggplant season is here and one of my all-time comfort food dishes is Eggplant Parmesan. I just love the creamy texture, when eggplant is cooked right, and how it pairs so beautifully with so many other flavors. Eggplant acts a flavor sponge while maintaining its own distinctive taste.

Eggplant’s origins go back to the 5th century in China and it found further popularity in Mediterranean Europe, around the 15th century. I have used them in classic dishes such as moussaka from Greece, Asian stir-fry, Indian rice dishes such as biryani, and ratatouille from France.

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