Weekday Mailbag

A question came in last night as to why Alsatian onion tart is considered a wintertime dish as opposed to a summer one, since onions are harvested in the summer months. The answer is, while I don’t know much about onions, I believe that it’s only the sweeter varieties (like Vidalia onions from Georgia) that […]

READ ON

Onions…

…of different types can be found growing wild the world over. However the large-bulbed varieties that we find so enjoyable today are thought to have originated in Central Asia somewhere. Though no one knows what the wild ancestors that produced the modern onion looked like, one thing is for certain: the onion has been part […]

READ ON

Web Site Forgery?

It’s been called to my attention that some of you Firefox users out there are having trouble reading the web site. Which is to say that since the weekend the Firefox browser has been warning people that they’re accessing a “forged” site, whatever that means. Rest assured that the entirely of the IT department here […]

READ ON

Pissaladière

My new friend Greg over at SippitySup.com reminds me that there is another French version of Alsatian onion tart, known under the vaguely vulgar-sounding name of pissaladière. The main difference between the two is that being a Provençal dish, it’s got plenty of anchovies mixed into the topping. Ours will be the classic onion and […]

READ ON

The 2,000-Year Game of Tug-of-War

Alsace is a unique little region in that it is perfectly suited for agriculture of the type that yields alcoholic beverages. The climate is ideal for growing grapes (particularly white grapes like Riesling), hops and a variety of fermentable fruit crops. Thus Alsace has been a center of beer, wine and schnapps-making for centuries. No […]

READ ON

Tarte à l’Oignon

That’s French for onion tart (I’m a man of the world, don’t you know). In Alsatian there’s a different word for it. What, you mean they speak another language in Alsace? I thought it was part of France! Yes, that’s true, Alsace is technically part of France. I say “technically” because it’s always been something […]

READ ON

Oh, the irony.

I’ve never been a supporter of organic anything, but that seems to be the only kind of advertising that finds its way onto my ad pane over to the right there. That’s the nature of web-vertising though, you throw open the window and whoever is willing to pay can come on in. Makes me feel […]

READ ON

And now for something completely different.

We’ve been on fruitcake-like Christmas items for a couple of weeks now, and some of you are getting understandably impatient (downright ticked off in a few cases). So let’s switch gears, shall we? At the beginning of last year I resolved to do more savory baking on this blog. So far I’ve done zero. This […]

READ ON

Battle of the Better Butters

Cook’s Illustrated, perhaps the only food magazine I read with any regularity, does great service to the food community with their regular evaluations of equipment and ingredients. This week a reader called my attention to their reviews of high-end butters. Their panel of tasters sampled 8 different products in all, among them heavy-hitters like Isigny […]

READ ON