Tucked beneath the Koolau Mountains on the leeward side of Oahu is Nalo Farms, salad bowl to Hawaii’s top chefs. There I met Dean Okimoto, owner and president. As we walked past neatly tended rows of produce, he explained that the greens he grows are different from their Mainland cousins. “Our environment is hotter — 74 to 90 degrees — and we have volcanic soil.” The conditions produce a different leaf structure and flavor.

Tiny leaves of arugula are more tender in the Islands and the additional sunlight makes the flavor more pungent. Because the leaves are thinner and lighter in weight than the Mainland variety, you get more volume. “One ounce of salad looks more like two ounces,” Okimoto said. [more…]

Sharon Tyler Herbst, passed away on January 26. Not everyone may know her name, but anyone who has a serious interest in food has a copy of her book, the Food Lover’s Companion, close at hand. It’s one of the references I recommend for any food newbie.

This compact paperback, a kind of dictionary-encyclopedia, is the source most of us go to when we want to ensure we have the right number of “cs” in focaccia or to find out what castor sugar is when translating an Irish recipe (superfine sugar). [more…]

This week’s issue of TIME magazine reported the death of Momofuku Ando, 96, in Osaka, Japan. And why should his death be of consequence to Americans?

Mr. Ando invented a food product in 1958 that has touched the lives of struggling college students the world over: he is the father of instant ramen noodles. As an encore, he invented Cup Noodles in 1971. Today, instant ramen is a multibillion-dollar industry; 85 million packages were sold in 2005, according to the TIME article. [more…]

Terry Blonder Golson, who lives in a small town west of Boston, loves chickens. For ten years, she has kept a small flock in her backyard. The hens, of different breeds, are very individual and quite beautiful.

Terry calls them “my girls” and they have such names as Buffy, Ginger, Edwina, Eleanor and Aunt Petunia. You can take a peek at them strutting and scratching via Terry’s hen cam, but only during the day — the hen cam shuts down at night when the hens go to bed. [more…]

You can’t be a “local” in Hawaii without loving plate lunches. A Hawaiian plate lunch recognizes just two food groups: meat and starch. Whatever the main dish — teriyaki beef, fried mahimahi or pork katsu (breaded pork cutlet) — it comes with macaroni salad AND two scoops of rice, with a nominal nod to vegetables by a bit of shredded cabbage, a lettuce leaf, or a few pieces of kim chee (Korean pickled vegetables).

This uniquely Hawaiian food expression is now gaining ground in California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado — nine states in all. The mastermind is Honolulu’s Eddie Flores, who came to the United States as a 16-year-old Filipino immigrant and built a multi-million foodservice empire on a Hawaiian plate lunch franchise. [more…]

I’ve always loved grilled food and we have certainly grilled our share of ribs, steaks, burgers and hot dogs over many summers. But until recently we fell short of the 26 times per year average grill usage per household, as reported by the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association.

We just purchased our first gas grill last month and now I get it. Almost-instant heat. Minimal food prep. Nominal cleanup. Delicious, healthy meals. What’s not to like? We’re now grilling several times a week, weeknights included.

Gas grilling is hardly different from broiling in the kitchen. Which may be why, although still a heavily male activity, more than 35 percent of women are now grilling, according to the same survey. [more…]

As Dana Jacobi tells it, timing is everything. Her first soy book, published in 1996, won culinary awards, but it didn’t really catch on until five years later, when the public was ready to embrace the benefits of soy. On the other hand, 12 Best Foods, her latest book, has been an instant success, due to the public buzz about antioxidants.

Keeping ahead of trends is a big part of what makes Dana a successful book author. She is a sought-after prognosticator who spoke at the Natural Products Show press briefing earlier this fall. Dana, a friend of many years, shared with me the information she presented. It represents her projections of food trends we can expect to see six to 12 months out. [more…]

Before there were Mario and Lidia and Rocco, there was Marcella. And before there was Marcella, “Italian” cooking was spaghetti and meatballs smothered in tomato sauce.

In 1973, Marcella published The Classic Italian Cookbook and introduced authentic regional Italian cuisines to Americans. “I wanted to tell the story — the way we eat, the way we shop,” she said to me recently, as we sat down at the Sonesta Hotel in Coconut Grove, Florida, where Marcella was to be honored with a Grande Dame Award for lifetime achievement from Les Dames d’Escoffier International.

How Marcella came to be the Grande Dame of Italian cooking is quite a story. [more…]

Last Saturday, I was sitting on a tour bus in Florida with Jerry Di Vecchio, the legendary former food editor of Sunset magazine. We were on a tour of the Everglades with Les Dames d’Escoffier International (LDEI) an organization of women leaders in food, beverage and the hospitality industries.

Retired from Sunset after 40 years, Jerry is now a freelance writer and an active food consultant. Just for fun, as we watched egrets and exotic scenery fly by, we started brainstorming some of the foods we take for granted today that weren’t so prevalent or didn’t exist in American supermarkets earlier in our lifetime: [more…]