I’ve gone most of my life thinking I don’t particularly care for cooked carrots. Give me the raw crunchy ones any time but why bother with the cooked mush? But then I encounter them roasted or braised, cooked slowly until they are burnished with deep dark spots and a concentrated carrot flavor, and I remember …

We’re in the long slog part of winter. The holiday season is far behind us, and spring in Chicago is still months away. This is, for me, the toughest time of year. I get stir crazy. I long for sunlight that stays past five o’clock and for sidewalks that don’t end in ankle-deep gray slush …

If you’ve made the best pizza dough ever, you might as well top it with the best pizza sauce. Especially when the best pizza sauce is also a 5-minute pizza sauce. I mean, I don’t blame anyone for going with a premade sauce. I’ve done it myself loads of times. But I used to think …

Outfitting a home bar is pretty easy if you know what to look for. But it’s easy to get lost in the weeds. These items are great for anyone who is just getting into cocktail making or looking to upgrade their old bar set from college that isn’t cutting it anymore. (Click on the image …

The best pizza dough is a bold claim. I know. And it’s obviously highly subjective. At any given time there is a heated argument on the Internet on the relative merits of New York style pizza versus Chicago style pizza, with some arguing the latter isn’t pizza at all. So, I’m here to say I …

We’re headed into the holiday season. That time of year when those of us who enjoy spending time in the kitchen tend to run ourselves ragged. We brine turkeys, we peel apples, we challenge our upper body strength with rolling pins and potato mashers, we test the fortitude of our mixers as we churn out …