Finish With a Frizzle: Garden-fresh garnishes in a flash
What are you gonna do with all of those delectable herbs shooting up in the vegetable garden and cascading over patio-side pots and windowsill containers? Betcha turn the bulk of your basil into pesto, right? Maybe you use bunches of mint and parsley in tabbouli, or garnish grilled salmon with chives for a refined touch…
Corn Gone Loco: Easy elotes are a totally street treat
You’ve waited all winter for corn on the cob hot off the grill. Make it really worth your while: Cover it in cheese and chile, Mexican style. Elotes are one of hundreds of ways that Mexicans do right by corn. An elote is an ear that’s been grilled or steamed and slathered with mayonnaise or…
Creative Kabobing: More combinations than you can shake a stick at
Skewering is a fairly global cooking technique. Persians, Chinese, Greeks and Spaniards have all skewered dishes. Heck, you can find shish kabobs at fairs nearly as often as you see cotton candy. Some of us, however, aren’t satisfied with the same oldbeef-bellpepper-mushroom-on-a-stick shtick. Traditionally, kabob cookery has implied bite-sized pieces of meat, poultry, seafood and…
Backyard Buzz: Green living drives interest in urban beekeeping
Amos Harris and Natalie Semchyshyn The skyline of St. Louis doesn’t come to mind as a backdrop for raising bees, but Amos Harris and his fiancée Natalie Semchyshyn are hoping to change that. Harris owns a building on Eighth Street downtown, and the two have been cultivating vegetables, herbs and flowers on 3,600 square feet…
He Said | She Said: Hail to Caesar
Cardini, that is. This ubiquitous salad has nothing to do with Julius. Instead, the salad’s namesake is Caesar Cardini – as in the salad dressing brand. He was an Italian immigrant and restaurateur living in San Diego, and legend has it that the salad exploded onto the scene on our country’s birthday in 1924. To…
Summer Sparklers: The wide, bubbly world of sparkling cocktails
Ted Kilgore talks about Camper English the way chefs swoon over Grant Achatz. In other words, he’s a die-hard mixologist. “I used to drink a lot of beer, but eventually I was more into mixing things,” said Kilgore, a certified mixologist who hones his craft as bar manager of Monarch in Maplewood. Recently, we caught…
Review: Scape in St. Louis
It’s amazing what you can learn from a bartender. Even better if the bartender is actually a well-informed manager standing in for an AWOL bartender. Recently, while eating at the bar at Scape, I queried the “bartender” about the recent changes at the goofily named restaurant on the multimillion dollar refurbished section of Maryland Plaza…
Rhubarb Recipes to Try This Summer
Allen Hegemann’s pushing 60 this year. Still, he committed to a new rhubarb field, setting out nearly 50 plants last year at his farm near Imperial. He’ll be nearing 85 when the field comes to full maturity. “Rhubarb’s not something you get into overnight,” he said. “I’d been growing a kind similar to what my…
Review: Buffalo Brewing Co. in St. Louis
At the risk of sounding tragically unhip, I have to admit something: I’m really not that big a fan of microbrews. Maybe it’s the thick hops. Maybe the mixture of malt. Maybe the bitter, unfamiliar finish. Chalk it up to poor taste on my part, but there’s just something in those distinctive regional brews that…
Recipe: The Pitted Olive’s Blue Cheese and Honeycomb
The classics are classic for a reason, which means it’s hard to improve upon them. But at now-shuttered The Pitted Olive in South City, chef and owner Mike Holmes found a way to up the volume on the age-old pairing of blue cheese and honey, tweaking texture with natural honeycomb and adding earthy truffle oil…
Rhubarb Relish
6 to 7 cups
Jasmine Smiles
1 serving
Elotes With Chipotle Crema
4 servings
Italian Star
1 serving
St. Louis Starr
1 serving
Chicken Curry
6 to 8 servings
Opium
1 serving
It’s all about food, family and the Jedi way
Vito Racanelli Jr. isn’t your average chef. He’s full of exuberant, infectious energy that permeates all of his work at Onesto Pizza & Trattoria, his new Italian restaurant in the Southampton neighborhood. Sit with him awhile and he’ll talk not only about food, wine and Italy, but his love for Miles Davis and obsession with…
So you think you know MO wine? Prove it
This month, MO Wine fans, an enological version of a crossword puzzle, but not as stressful. These questions were created over several late nights of sipping Chardonel, Traminette and a glass or two of Missouri port; you might want to adopt the same strategy for taking the quiz. Enjoy! 1. What is the alias of…
At Skybox even Little Leaguers feel like superstars
No doubt about it, St. Louis loves its sports – and its sports heroes, even off the field. After all, what other city can boast so many bars and restaurants owned by or named for local sports personalities? J. Buck’s, Ozzie’s, Dierdorf & Hart’s, Mike Shannon’s, Al Hrabosky’s Ballpark Saloon, Pujols Five, and Jim Edmonds’…
Curry favor with lots of flavor
Curry is a confused word; those five letters mean so many different things in different cuisines. Curry can be a spice blend, an herb, an Indian dish, a Thai dish (with a hundred variations) or part of an Indonesian rice table. A curry is also a bright yellow goo that was especially popular in the…
Red’s spectacular taste of home
Barbecue means different things to different people – whether your preference is for the vinegar sauces of the South, the fieriness of Texas or the molasses-fueled sweetness of Kansas City. Competitions nationwide to allow the pros to duke it out over which sauce is best, what woods to cook with or even which meat to…
