The one good thing about being sick is getting well again, seeing with new eyes all you took for granted.

I bought a $1 red pepper at the Oak Park Farmers’ Market recently, picking it up only because it was this beautiful shade of red and, frankly, seemed to be calling my name, all shiny and fragrant.

I’ve been having a lot of bad luck in the kitchen lately. I mean, not that anyone’s keeping track, but, in the last few weeks, the handful of times I’ve found to try a new recipe or carve out an hour to cook, the results were unimpressive (OK, with...

A lot of people say autumn weather pushes them towards the kitchen, towards the warmth of the stove as the sky darkens and the air chills, towards soups and stews and pies filled with apples. One of you even said here recently that this time of year...

My brother turned 25 on Saturday. And while I could tell you a lot of reasons why this is significant, such as the fact that he is my only sibling and oldest friend or that he is the one person in this world who would talk to me on speakerphone the...

I am sorry to say I made several mistakes with this recipe—are you ready for this? To start, I didn’t chop the kale ahead of time, so the pieces were huge when they got tossed with the pasta; also, instead of using the called-for full pound, I just...

“If only we could apply a travelling mind-set to our own locales, we might find these places becoming no less interesting than, say, the high mountain passes and butterfly-filled jungles of Humboldt’s South America.” (Alain de Botton, Art of...