A good potato salad is something of an essential for the backyard cookout or grilling session.  It can be made ahead, and adds that substantial heft to a burger or hot dog plate.  And a homemade potato salad is so much better than a bag of cheap chips.  Served next to a steak, it’s downright [...]

The main attraction in these early days of the farmers markets here is the wide variety of lettuces and salad greens.  But I skip right past those stalls, because this year I have a big beautiful, bed of lettuces in my own backyard, with a little help from Bennett-Burk Farm.  I have eaten lettuce every [...]

Easy and good. Maybe two of the best words ever for busy cooks. This is a great little recipe for a simple, crispy salad that highlights autumn’s goodness.  I make this for myself throughout the season.  I love it beside a peanut butter sandwich, but I have also put it in a pita with a [...]

I am something of a chicken salad savant.  I came late to the party, having an unreasonable and unfathomable aversion to mayonnaise in my youth and childhood.  That, and little exposure to good chicken salad.  I only choked down bad, plastic-container chicken salad out of politeness at parties and luncheons, and maybe a school cafeteria. [...]

I love community cookbooks. The great and broad recipe collections gathered together by Junior Leagues, Junior Auxiliaries, symphony groups, historic homes, garden clubs.  I have a large and ever-growing collection of these treasures.  Some of them are quite professional nowadays, with editors and trained photographers.  But I particularly love the old-school cookbooks, from the Forties, [...]

I know.  Frankly, it’s just fun to say.  Succotash.  I could go here with Sweet Summer Succotash Salad. Sunny Season Succotash Salad. Or the trite but amusing Sufferin’ Succotash Salad.  But more than being a pleasure to say, it’s a pleasure to eat. Crispy corn, creamy limas, crunchy bell pepper in a sweet-tart Vidalia dressing.  [...]