In Issue #41 Sept/Oct 2021

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR:
Come for the photos. Stay for the recipes.

Welcome to the cooking issue, full of recipes and tips. Recipes are to be shared. Working for food magazines all my life, I’ve asked more than a few cooks and chefs for recipes. Some say yes, and some say no, wanting to keep it secret or proprietary information. Newsflash: no one cares. Unless you’re the Coco-Cola company, no one is interested or inclined to steal your recipe or even make it for that matter. They just like knowing they have it. It makes them feel connected. Such was the comment from Nathan Gifford when I asked if I could take a picture of his bacon in his dry-age room. “Sure, I don’t’ care, what’s someone going to do, take it and start a bacon company?”

Whether my kids want them or not, they’ll inherit my binders full of recipes with hand writing all over them and tattered edges and grease stains. Some date back to the 1970’s when I started reading Cuisine and Gourmet. 

Tony and Cathy Mantuano of Yolan in The Joseph Hotel made us a simple, yet exquisite pasta dish in their home down the street from the hotel. Chef and mushroom grower David Speegle shares his mushroom toast and mushroom tacos from Café Makai and Chef Laura Rodriguez shows us how to preserve cucumbers. And we share a few of our recipes too, namely, how to make pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin. The beautiful heirloom pumpkins are also beautiful to cook with.

And finally, “It takes only one generation for a recipe or a method of agriculture to disappear.”

This quote is on the importance of recipe traditions and keeping them alive amongst certain populations, from our special section produced by Edible Communities, our parent organization. It focuses on alleviating hunger and food insecurity and the importance of nourishing food, not just food.

September and October are the best months in the kitchen. Summer is still in full force with tomatoes, peppers, corn, and basil, yet fall brings pumpkins, squash, and apples. The farmers markets are an embarrassment of riches. For an embarrassment of recipes, peruse this website. 

Bon Appetit, Jill