Georgia is one of 23 states in which romaine lettuce has been recalled due to its possible link in an E. Coli outbreak that has sickened at least 19 people. So far, all those who have become ill are in Ohio, New York and Michigan. An additional 10 people have in those states have probably been sickened.

The possibly tainted lettuce was packaged by Freshway Foods of Sidney, Ohio, and sold under the Freshway and Imperial Sysco brands.

The romaine under investigation is pre-shredded. Neither whole-head romaine nor any romaine from other producers are under investigation.

You can read a summary of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s report here.

Continue reading Georgia among states in romaine lettuce recall »

Bleak roe at Lisa Elmqvist inside the Östermalms Saluhall food market

Earlier this week, my wife and spent a few days in Stockholm, Sweden. Everyone was outdoors, celebrating the arrival of spring and balmy, sunny 50-degree days. If there’s one image that sticks in my mind, it is of people sitting outside at café patios, swaddled in the blankets provided with each chair.

Spring in Stockholm also means lots of white asparagus — “Sparri!” shout the outdoor produce vendors, shaking the fat spears at you as you walk by. Nettles, ramps, mushrooms and the first strawberries of the season were in market, and the flowering trees splashed color against the gray skies. Here are a few images of Swedish yumminess.

1. Food Market Adventures

Our hotel was right around the corner from Östermalms Saluhall, the city’s great food market, which dates to 1888. The various food stalls inside specialize in product — poultry, meat, fish, produce, spices, sweets, baked goods, etc. — but also offer …

Continue reading Swedish Snarfapalooza »

Chef Sean Brock

For the third year in a row, a Charleston chef took home the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef Southeast — a region that encompasses Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, the Carolinas and West Virginia.

This year the award went to Sean Brock — the extremely talented young man behind the stove at McCrady’s Restaurant. I spent a day with Brock for a story I wrote about him for Food Arts magazine, and was impressed with his unique and uniquely fun style of cooking. I was also amazed by his boundless energy in undertaking various food projects. He farms and raises a lot of his own produce biodynamically, he raises pigs, he cures meats, he imports and packages culinary chemicals (for advanced culinary techniques, such as spherification) and he has become deeply involved in seed saving — sourcing and cataloging heirloom varieties of beans, peas, corn and farro. I can see why he won.

Yet Brock’s win leaves Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene and Hugh Acheson of …

Continue reading No James Beard Awards for Georgians this year »

From Kids Cooking Activity Newsletter

Do your kids ever take the reins and decide to make dinner for the family? Do you include cooking among their chores?

In our house, I do most of the cooking. But my 12 year old loves to work in the kitchen, and she recently decided to prepare dinner for the family. I’m thinking about making this a regular once-a-week activity. Parents: do you have any advice for me?

Here’s a column I wrote about the experience, which appeared in the print edition of the paper last Sunday.

Daughter turns the tables

“I’m going to cook dinner tonight, ” my 12-year-old said matter-of-factly one afternoon.

“You are?” I asked. “What are you planning to make?”

“Fish, ” she answered. “Or meat. Or fish and meat. Which one do you want?”

“Fish sounds good, ” I said, starting to get a little nervous as I thought of her other cooking experiments.

There was the time she discovered a patch of wild onions in a soccer field and proceeded to turn them into soup with raw …

Continue reading Do your school-age children ever cook dinner? »

This is pike perch from Lisa Elmqvist restaurant. I’ll be back and posting later in the week.

Continue reading Greetings from Stockholm »