Grains

I’m loving this dish. Couscous has long been a staple food in North Africa’s Maghreb but it has become popular around the world in recent years. I remember discovering it on a long-ago trip to startlingly-beautiful and exasperatingly-strident  Morocco. Most of us here in the…

This is a post about farro. People have been enjoying farro for a very long time. Farro images can be found on the walls of the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. The Egyptians stocked the tombs of their leaders with all the good stuff they would…

I’ve always enjoyed soup. It is my idea of comfort food. There is something wonderful about the chemistry of making soup. You put all those healthy ingredients together and (sometimes) voila! For the last few weeks my love affair with soup has taken on a…

  What does it take for quinoa to get a little respect?     There is a strong case to be made for quinoa. The United Nations, after all, proclaimed 2013 “The Year of Quinoa.” Nutritionists extol quinoa’s nutritional virtues. It’s a complete protein and…

To my delight, I’ve realized that I have some holes in my cookbook collection. My Middle Eastern cookbook shelf, in particular, is a little thin. I say “to my delight” because, believe me, I welcome any excuse to buy new cookbooks. Picture me with a…

  Sad. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).  That kind of sad. That’s what I think has been causing my sense of self worth to crater for the last week. Those menacing dark clouds and torrential rains may have nourished my garden, but they sure tipped my mood…

    I confess that making risotto isn’t (or hasn’t been) a strong suit for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love rice. It is just that, somehow, risotto always seemed like it would be complicated to prepare. Then my world changed. I got an…

        I found this soup recipe on the Washington Post site and the ideas of pureeing some of the chickpeas as a technique to increase the creaminess of the soup broth and of adding farro to give the soup substance intrigued me. In…

Here is your history lesson. Stay with me here. We get to Fabio a bit later in this post. Dates were a staple of the Babylonian diet as long as 8000 years ago, putting the date in the running for the distinction of being the…

  I’ve been itching to try farro in a salad and, as you may remember, I have the better part of a four-pound bag of farro sitting on my pantry shelf calling my name (See Farro and Bean Soup). I couldn’t be more pleased with…