Kiss My Grits

Corn used to be dried for storage. Dry corn lasts a lot longer than watery fresh corn. When you were ready to eat your dried corn, you could take it to the local grist mill and have it ground into corn meal suitable for corn bread, corn mush, stuff like that. As the stone wheel …

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November 2, 2006 – 2:43 pm | By chrisandcamri | Posted in Food | Tagged , | Comments (2)

MMM…Muesli

We’d seen “Mueslix” before, but never tried “Muesli” until we went to Ireland for a friend’s wedding. Muesli is German for “dry rolled oats, nuts, and berries.” Actually, to be fair, while Camri was discovering Muesli, I was discovering eggs, thick bacon, and black pudding. While I was purposely not asking what the difference between …

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October 26, 2006 – 2:39 pm | By chrisandcamri | Posted in Food | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Take Care of Your Cast Iron Skillet

Two articles ago we recommended cooking a steak on a cast iron skillet and promised an article on caring for your skillet. So here it is, now that you’ve got a big hunk of iron in your kitchen, how do you take care of it? Seasoning The first thing you’ll need to do is season …

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October 19, 2006 – 2:35 pm | By chrisandcamri | Posted in Food | Tagged | Comments (0)

Winter Wine

I’m writing this Wednesday evening, on the train ride home. It’s 47 degrees outside. It’s supposed to get down to 30 tonight, and there’s a strong possiblity of snow tomorrow morning. This is going to be a hard Chicago winter. Wine and winter go together like peanut butter and jelly. It warms you up, flushes …

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October 12, 2006 – 2:34 pm | By chrisandcamri | Posted in Drink | Tagged , | Comments (0)

How to Cook a Steak

Camri and I like red meat, but it’s not a big part of our diet. We like a steak every couple of weeks though. Buying a steak at a restaurant is pretty expensive, especially if you want a really good cut of meat. Most steaks come out really well on the grill. Put a little …

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October 4, 2006 – 2:25 pm | By chrisandcamri | Posted in Food | Tagged , , | Comments (3)

So Long Farmer’s Market, See You Next Year

Yesterday was the last day of the Daley Plaza farmer’s market. We’re sad to see it go. We met up there at least every other week to pick up a post-lunch apple, or just to walk around and see green stuff. Chicago is really great about encouraging and supporting local farmer’s markets. It’s one more …

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September 29, 2006 – 2:23 pm | By chrisandcamri | Posted in Food | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Honeycrisp!

The Honeycrisp apple season has officially started. Reports from a network of Chicago-land Honeycrisp afficianados are trickling in. Camri saw a very bruised batch at Harvest Time on Lawrence, we’ve also heard that local farmers markets have started to carry them. Get out there and start crunching! For the uninitiated, the Honeycrisp apple is the …

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September 21, 2006 – 2:21 pm | By chrisandcamri | Posted in Food | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

How to Roast Your Own Coffee

About a year ago I started to roast coffee on a sideburner on my bbq grill. I’ve only bought pre-roasted coffee a handful of times since. Coffee roasting is a simple process, very inexpensive, and lots of fun. Getting Started Start by buying this book: As far as I know, it’s the only book dedicated …

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September 20, 2006 – 2:20 pm | By chrisandcamri | Posted in Drink | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Fall Baking

It dipped below fifty degrees here in Chicago this week, which makes us start thinking about Fall Baking. Those gigantic candles with names like “all american apple pie” and “peach cobbler crisp” don’t compare to the real thing. We bake pretty frequently during the cold months, lots of biscuits, scones, and big “rustic” loafs of …

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September 19, 2006 – 2:19 pm | By chrisandcamri | Posted in Food | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Beer Cocktails

Beer cocktails? Here’s a list from allaboutbeer.com. They make a really interesting beer cocktail at De Cero on Randolph Street (just a few blocks from Harpo Studios) called a chelada. Camri and I had one a few months ago, and have experimented with the concept a few times when folks have come over. It’s a …

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September 1, 2006 – 10:20 am | By chrisandcamri | Posted in Drink | Tagged , | Comments (0)