FOOD

Recipes and news on Southern cooking, Alabama chefs, healthy eating and more

Ownership change brings even more attention to nationally acclaimed goat cheese made in Elkmont, Alabama

Though she made goat cheese in less-than-glamorous surroundings in Elkmont, Liz Parnell, who founded Fromagerie Belle Chèvre in 1989, garnered national attention and praise for her quality product.

While it can be found in Alabama, it is also in some of the upscale cheese shops around the country where it holds its own and often stands out among goat cheeses from around the world.

Continue reading "Belle Chevre's new slice of life" »

Blame it on the Olympics. Blame it on the economy. Blame it on the wonderful rice served with seafood gumbo last week at a local Cajun restaurant.

Rice is a staple of the diets of many nationalities, and though the price has risen recently, and there is a possibility that it may go higher, it certainly wins the congeniality award when it comes to going with other foods.

Continue reading "A refresher course on the basics of rice" »

Chilled, glossy, garnet-hued cherries are a favorite summertime indulgence.

Each year, when the sweet, petite treats make their appearance at the market, I snap them up and take them home to serve as a simple, sensational finale after dinner.

Continue reading "Cherries: Sweet & Sour" »

We are in what I like to call the summer vortex of food, right smack in the middle of several seasons.

It's that boring time when most stuff is either over or it hasn't started yet.

The crawfish are long gone, red snapper season is closed, the white shrimp haven't quite started to show up yet, and the summer garden is grudgingly giving way to the fall planting.

Continue reading "It's too hot to cook, so bring on the questions" »

I take my second grader downtown to school each day from Vestavia Hills. It is a seven-mile drive, and I can carpool if I want to, but at the end of that trip there is Birmingham's best soy latte waiting for me at Safari Cup. So I like to drive Eleni to school myself. The coffee shop is right on the way; I can pull over to the curb on Richard Arrington Drive, then Eleni and I can run in for my coffee, her croissant, and an over-the-counter visit with Sharon and Dave McLaughlin.

Continue reading "Grilled lamb burgers perfect for casual summer dinner" »

True, the upscale restaurant near Spring Hill, will be the setting for Monday's benefit for the Mobile Botanical Gardens.

It will feature a high-end, contemporary three-course meal prepared by chef Wesley True and his staff. Chef True, a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef, was still fiddling with the menu last week.

But he said he was toying with the notion of serving such tasty offerings as smoked scallops with corn soup along with grass-fed hanger steak.

Continue reading "Mobile Botanical Gardens raises money with benefit dinner at True" »

Today, we're going to do a quick and easy recipe with a big old root system behind it. The cake we're going to use is just a boxed mix because it's not the cake that is important here, it's the icing: My Grandmother's old fashioned peanut butter icing.

This is another boiled icing, identical to the one we used for the fudge glaze on our chocolate pound cake yesterday, only with peanut butter instead of cocoa.

This cake will forever me endeared to be for one reason, my great Aunt Red.

Continue reading "Yellow Cake With Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Icing" »

After the Fox 6 segment this weekend on Fun and Frugal Kid's Lunches, I had a lot of questions about how to make the hotdog octopus I showed on air.

Here are the step by step directions:

Continue reading "Turn a hotdog into an octopus... for lunch?" »