Category: Journal of an Island Kitchen

Last weekend we stacked firewood in the barn, collecting and piling small pieces separately for kindling. Over the 30-plus years I’ve cooked on a wood burning kitchen stove, I’ve gotten mighty fussy about firewood, and can tell just by looking at a stick whether it will fit the kitchen stove… SEE MORE

Flavor matters so much when we eat. Cooks sample as they go along to make sure the seasoning is just right, that the balance of salt, sweet, spicy, sour, bitter, and umami is pleasing. Still, each of us experiences flavor in highly personal ways, hence, “De gustibus, non disputandum est.”… SEE MORE

By the summer of 1979, like many human beings around the globe and in times past, I ate relatively little meat. It wasn’t a matter of principle. I ate vegetables and grains largely for economic reasons, employed at a job qualifying me for food stamps for which I never applied.… SEE MORE

Chowder season begins and ends simultaneously in Maine. Maybe on a few over-warm days in July and early August it doesn’t taste as good as it does on chilly September nights. Most traditional Maine eateries keep it on the menu all the time. For people truly from Maine, it’s a… SEE MORE

Somebody recently told me that millennials weren’t eating as much packaged cereal as they used to because pouring milk into it and then cleaning up the bowl afterwards took too much effort. I thought, surely that’s apocryphal. Nope. In 2016, the Washington Post reported that cereal sales were lagging and… SEE MORE

If ever there was a time when we all needed comforting, surely it is now. If ever there was a time when comfort food was a good idea, surely it is now. After we have filled our plates with mashed potatoes, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, chocolate pudding, baked… SEE MORE