Cook's Country April/May 2023

I USED TO SAY that my middle son’s first words were, “Cook. Cook.” That’s because he was always in the kitchen with me, clanging around in the lower cabinet that I staged with his favorite pots, pans, and wooden spoons. He crawled and then toddled into the kitchen whenever I was making dinner or testing recipes for work. Mixing batter was particularly fun for him. As he got older, watching television food personality Alton Brown became a favorite pastime. And when he was a high school junior, he published a recipe and story for Edible Austin, explaining his love of the kitchen. “My love of cooking probably came from my mom—a writer and cookbook author. Over the years she’s concocted new recipes and exposed our family to all sorts of…

I USED TO SAY that my middle son’s first words were, “Cook. Cook.” That’s because he was always in the kitchen with me, clanging around in the lower cabinet that I staged with his favorite pots, pans, and wooden spoons. He crawled and then toddled into the kitchen whenever I was making dinner or testing recipes for work. Mixing batter was particularly fun for him. As he got older, watching television food personality Alton Brown became a favorite pastime. And when he was a high school junior, he published a recipe and story for Edible Austin, explaining his love of the kitchen. “My love of cooking probably came from my mom—a writer and cookbook author. Over the years she’s concocted new recipes and exposed our family to all sorts of really…

MESCLUN MIX Mixing and matching greens is a great way to build a flavorful salad. When you buy a container of mesclun mix—which can also be labeled spring mix—it already includes a variety of greens, such as baby lettuces; baby spinach; arugula; and more robust options such as beet greens, Swiss chard, and radicchio. The word “mesclun” derives from a French word meaning “mixture.” You can make your own mesclun mix by combining your favorite young, delicate greens. We recommend pairing mild-flavored greens, such as baby red or green lettuce and baby spinach, with stronger-flavored greens, such as arugula and endive. Beet greens, Swiss chard, radicchio, baby kale, watercress, and even fresh herbs can be added to spruce up the mix. Choose the flavors you like best. –Megan Ginsberg If…

THINGS CAN GET messy fast when you’re cooking—especially if you’re doing a lot of prep work like peeling carrots, stemming herbs, or dicing onions. Those scraps can clutter your workspace and often end up in the trash. Americans contribute billions of pounds of food to landfills every year. Composting those scraps can divert a lot of waste from landfills and reduce the resulting methane emissions. A countertop compost bin allows you to neatly store food scraps until you can transfer them to a backyard setup or a bin for curbside pickup. These handy bins are often more aesthetically pleasing than plastic utility buckets or bags, and the best models strike the perfect balance between design and functionality. Some also offer helpful features that simplify storing scraps, including filters that contain…

MESCLUN MIX Mixing and matching greens is a great way to build a flavorful salad. When you buy a container of mesclun mix—which can also be labeled spring mix—it already includes a variety of greens, such as baby lettuces; baby spinach; arugula; and more robust options such as beet greens, Swiss chard, and radicchio. The word “mesclun” derives from a French word meaning “mixture.” You can make your own mesclun mix by combining your favorite young, delicate greens. We recommend pairing mild-flavored greens, such as baby red or green lettuce and baby spinach, with stronger-flavored greens, such as arugula and endive. Beet greens, Swiss chard, radicchio, baby kale, watercress, and even fresh herbs can be added to spruce up the mix. Choose the flavors you like best. –Megan Ginsberg If you buy prewashed…

CHICAGO PIZZA EXPERT and author Steve Dolinsky and I take our seats at a red-and-white checkered picnic table out in front of My Pi Pizza in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood, just as owner Rich Aronson emerges with a signature deep-dish pizza. Rich cuts the pizza into quarters with the blade of a stiff metal spatula and lifts a slice by its crust, holding it high in the air to show that the crust is sturdy and crisp enough to support the weight of the cheese, sausage, and sauce without bending. “The original Chicago [deep-dish] pie looks like this one. It’s thin, you can hold it with your hands, it doesn’t flop,” Steve says. The pizza itself is surprisingly light in texture with a noticeable flakiness to the crust. The toppings, an…