Any fool can grow Swiss chard, I like to say. My gardening strategy is a process of elimination. I’ll give something one or two tries, and after that it’s off the list; I’ll let someone else, with greener thumbs than me, grow it. My goal is a garden of foolproof foods, and chief among them, come rain or shine, is Swiss chard. (Other foolproof greens are collards, kale, and mustard greens; but not spinach or watercress.)

Long before I started growing greens, (more…)

A lot of good cooking is derived from using up what’s at hand. In this case the recipe for Dried Beef Hash, or Aporreada de Huetamo, from The Art of Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy allowed me make use of some dried beef I had in the freezer (it’s always a good day when I actually remove something from our over-packed freezer instead of just adding to it) and, since this hash include eggs, some of the eggs that are being produced (more…)