When October rolls around, I start thinking about beer.  Because I start thinking about Oktoberfest.  I’ve never been to Germany, so I’ve never been to a real Oktoberfest celebration, which I understand generally happen at the end of September anyway.  But the idea of Oktoberfest just presents so many options for cooking with, and drinking, [...]

I am a newcomer to Corned Beef and Cabbage.  I have generally enjoyed my corned beef deli sliced on a sandwich and my cabbage in slaw.  My father is a big fan of corned beef and cabbage, but somehow it hadn’t trickled down to me.  I had certainly thought about developing a recipe for St. [...]

Recipe ideas come to me everywhere, at any time and take me in odd directions.  I was reading a magazine during an interminable wait at a doctor’s office once and saw a recipe called “German Meatballs.”  My mind immediately went to bratwurst, beer and mustard so I was intrigued and kept reading.  But that magazine [...]

  In Bruges When I was young and foolish and full of high ideals, I spent a semester away from college studying European politics in London.  The whole merry band of scholars was ushered to Brussels for a week to visit the European Union headquarters and NATO and lots of other sites twenty year-old college [...]