Classy Program

Big Ten Champs, Again

2007-11-17T14:31:00.000-06:00

Ohio State 14 Michigan 3 Jim Tressel and The Ohio State Buckeyes continue their domination of the lowly wolverines. Since taking over the head coaching reins at Ohio State, Tressel is 6-1. The Michigan graduating seniors have not beaten the Buckeyes in their four years of playing for Michigan. The vaunted Buckeye defense gave up only 89 total yards. Mike Hart was held to 42 yards while Mario

Baked Mostaccioli and Meatballs

2007-03-31T13:26:00.000-05:00

Christopher Kimball has done a good job with his 'Inside America's Test Kitchen'. Anyone who would roast 30 to 40 chickens to get it 'just right' has to be passsionate about the job. And good for us. We benefit from all of this because we can go right to the end result without all the agony. Thank you, Christopher. I have my own test kitchen phenom in Sanford d'Amato, owner and chef at

Still Alive

2007-03-23T09:02:00.000-05:00

Seems to be a repeating pattern with the Buckeyes this sports season. Ranked #1 for most of it and then . . . Let's hope the hoopster Buckeyes complete the task. To date, though, they have made my life a little tooooo frenetic. Remember when you were a kid and your parents told you to close your eyes because they did not want you to peak too soon for the impending treat that you were sure was

Need Anything Else Be Said

2007-01-12T08:37:00.000-06:00

Buckeyes 42 Wolverines 39

2006-11-19T09:16:00.000-06:00

39 1st2nd3rd4th #2 MICH (11-1) 7 7 10 15 39 #1 OSU (12-0) 7 21 7 7 42 November 18, 2006 - Ohio Stadium

Peanut Butter

2006-10-17T15:00:00.000-05:00

Jif, Captain Crunch and Skippy...the three mainstays of peanut butter in my growing up years. All creamy. Not crunchy. If I wanted crunchy peanuts, I would eat them out of the shell. Peanut butter and jelly. On Wonder Bread. Couldn't get much better. With the exception of maybe dippin' a piece of celery or carrot directly into the peanut butter jar. And in the absence of dippin' sticks, I could

Summer Salads

2006-09-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Maybe potato salad oughta be a year round salad not just for summer. Salad Nicoise is French potato salad, perfect for summer with it's oil/vinegar based dressing instead of mayonnaise. The name itself, Salad Nicoise, sounds like it might take time to prepare, not a plus in summer. In reality, it is nothing more than the dressing - with tuna, green beans, olives and egg wedges....and the

The Ohio State University

2006-09-11T22:20:00.000-05:00

The Ohio State University 24 UT at Austin 7 I've been a Buckeye since birth in Ohio... went to school in Columbus, twice. During my earlier years Woody Hayes won a couple of Big Ten titles and some national stuff. Then in the late 70's he seemed to outgrow his clothes...slapped a player during a game...bye-bye, Woody. After that, football at The University of Ohio was a sometime thing for

Stuffed Pasta Shells

2006-07-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

I keep watching Sandy d'Amato's 'Kitchen Technician' column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sunday edition. He consistently comes up some relatively easy to make winners. His latest that we tried last night, Stuffed Pasta Shells, is another one. You can view his entreé and comments here. Next time you visit his restaurant Sandord's, ask Angie about his singing. The tomato sauce is nicely

Vinyl Restoration

2006-03-06T10:40:00.000-06:00

About 6 months ago I wrote about record restoration and trying to correct alot of youthful indiscretions of abuse on vinyl recordings. Well, the learning curve has been a steep one. Thought I had restored about two dozen or so. But was frustrated with an album a friend wanted me to restore. Put it aside for a couple of months and returned to the challenge at the beginning of the year. Not a New

Cacciatore

2006-03-02T17:00:00.000-06:00

Some time ago I wrote about Italian chef Marcella Hasan's recipe for cacciatore. It is a wonderful dish that can be made in about 1 - 1½ hours. I use it regularly....that is, until I rediscovered a recipe by Sandy d' Amato, Milwaukees' James Beard award winner. Sandy published his cacciatore about two years ago and I had clipped the article from the Journal Sentinel where it first appeared. Doin

30-Minute Meal?

2006-03-01T10:16:00.000-06:00

FoodTV's Rachael Ray seems to have cornered the 30 minute meals TV crowd. But she doesn't have a monopoly on the art of preparing good food in a short time frame. Gourmet magazine has a section in their magazine called 'Quick Kitchen'. The February issue offers a sautée/grilled chicken breast ala Morocco with a lemon couscous. The recipe is easy to do and the results are very good. A couple of

Minestrone

2006-01-28T11:00:00.000-06:00

As noted in earlier jottings, one of my honey's kitchen things is making soup - comfort food - during the frosty months. Of course, it has to be good for you. So, my first pick is minestrone laden with fresh veggies in home made chicken stock. When we married in the 70's, I brought to the table my collection of cookbooks, including the Time/Life books published in the '60's called Foods of The

Soups

2006-01-14T08:55:00.000-06:00

Starting early December my sweetie begins to talk about comfort foods such as soups. She makes some pretty fine soups, too. Unfortunately, her presence in the kitchen making soups is sooooo seasonal. Soups like minestrone and borscht need to be enjoyed more than once a year. She also has a hankerin' for chili. Her kind of chili. Beans and hamburger in a watery mess has never been something that

Beef Stew

2005-11-20T20:30:00.000-06:00

Woke last week to 11°. Fahrenheit, Celsius...... doesn't matter....Seemed a good time to make one of my favorite cold weather meals, boeuf bourguignon. It's similar to our beef stew, but with the addition of some burgundy wine, thus the name beef burgundy. There are as many variations to this dish as there are cooks/chefs. I like the one put together by two of the best, Julia Childs and Jacques

Butterscotch

2005-10-23T16:15:00.000-05:00

Pop loved all things butterscotch. He would splash, actually paste, some butterscotch sauce on anything that he thought called for a flavor boost... sometimes even if I thought the flavor could not be improved. I've been experimenting with butterscotch for the past several weeks to find out why he thought this brown sugar treat was so delectable. Searched the web for some recipes...there are

Neiman-Marcus Cookies

2005-09-19T16:00:00.000-05:00

I received an email about a public relations snafu at Nieman-Marcus. A lady and her daughter were lunching there and ordered the famous Nieman-Marcus Cookie for dessert. Mama found it to be of the usual high Nieman-Marcus standards and asked if she could get the recipe. The waitress declined to give it but would sell it to her for two-fifty. The amount was added to the luncheon bill. When

Grillin'

2005-09-01T16:20:00.000-05:00

Back in the 90's I worked in Asia, mostly a few months each year in Hong Kong and southern China. No where have I had food as fresh as I did there.... the fish swims in a tank until you pick it out, then is prepared your favorite way. And the flavors of the foods I remember to this day. So, when I come across a recipe like this one that combines Asian flavors with grillin', I try it. Butterflied

More Seasonal pies

2005-08-06T01:45:00.000-05:00

Picking up where I left off - on the joys of seasonal cooking: It's blueberry season so I made a blueberry pie - the filling from Rose Levy Beranbaum's book. My own crust, of course. This adaptation is one of the best, simply because only a portion of the filling is cooked, then added to the remaining berries.... keeps the filling from becoming mush. And as the plastic container advertises: this

Seasonal Cooking

2005-08-01T16:30:00.000-05:00

Summer cooking takes advantage of the wide array of garden fruits and veggies. Fruit pies have become my favorite in the past few years.....mainly because of the ease of making a consistent pie crust. Seems that every cookbook has its own version of a pie crust. Browsing the recent Cook's Illustrated, I find they've come up with another version of the quintessential pie crust. There is

House Chores

2005-07-20T14:45:00.000-05:00

Things have been pretty hectic around here for the past several weeks. Started a project to insulate a part of the back entry that the contractors negliently overlooked many years ago. The temperature soared here in the tundra so my work days were cut back to 3 hours or so. Also, over the many years I have collected about 350 vinyl 33 rpm assorted jazz/vocals. Unfortunately, in my youth I abused

Banana Cream Pie

2005-06-22T07:30:00.000-05:00

Is there a better way to get one's daily supply of potassium than through a big helping of banana cream pie? Maybe, but why deprive yourself of the pleasure of this one? My wife's art colleague calls it the banana cream pie diet. The first recipe I tried was from the Joy of Cooking, circa mid 20th century. It was simple enough but the filling was too thin and the pie ran when at room temperature

Frittatas

2005-06-17T18:45:00.000-05:00

Frittatas are the Italian version of an omelette. Or it could be my sister-in-law's version: the add whatever's-in-the -fridge to the eggbeaters recipe. I thought there had to be a better way to make this seemingly simple Italian dish and at the same time trying to keep it on the level of an omelette. About a year ago, Sandy D'Amato of Sandford's Restaurant in Milwaukee, wrote about a trip he

New York Style Cheesecake

2005-06-13T03:00:00.000-05:00

Stick-to the-roof-of-your-mouth-capabilities: that's New York Style Cheesecake . It is pure, undulated cheesecake with no fancy ingredients added either to the cheesecake or placed on top of it. It's made with pure cream cheese, cream, eggs, and sugar, writes Linda Stradley at her web site What's Cooking America. I was first introduced to Turf's cheesecake when they were shipping from 85th

Salad Dressings

2005-06-08T17:30:00.000-05:00

Salad Dressing. One of the easiest items of a meal to prepare yet one of the most overlooked. Many cooks spend hours in the kitchen preparing one of their best meals.... and then serve the salad with supermarket dressing. Whether you're prepping for a 30 min. meal, ala Food TV's Rachel Ray, or for the spread that takes several hours to prepare, an outstanding salad dressing takes only minutes.