Today marked at an all time low on the lunch front.   Having boiled a vegetarian hot dog, I then remembered that I had no bread or buns.  Lacking such entree alternatives as homemade soup, mixed greens, fresh fruit or cereal, I had no choice but to eat this hot dog, with ketchup, on top of a cracker.  (Yes, yes.  I could have eaten just the hot dog but at the time this sounded even less appealing.) The crunchiness of the rosemary-laced cracker coupled with the squishiness of the ketchup-coated hot dog is not a pairing that I want to experience again.  Not a full-fledged “Yuck!” but certainly far, far from “Yum!”  Working from home, I often find myself thinking about food. Yet, when lunch rolls around and I can eat guilt-free, food seems to be the very last thing that I have in the pantry.  On days when I don’t have time to run out to a diner, much less to the supermarket, and the delivery options leave me unenthused, I need alternatives to my usual handful …

On this bleak and frigid January afternoon I sit in my office, staring out the window at the hard, frost-covered ground.  At times winter in the Northeast can seem endless.  One digit days and sub-zero nights.  Plodding around in an ungainly puffy coat, thick mittens, fuzzy hat and thermal underwear, I feel like an ill-dressed Weeble.  Unfortunately, unlike the toy of my youth, when I slip on a patch of sinister black ice, I wobble as well as fall down.   While many of winter’s sufferers dream of white beaches and rum drinks, I yearn for the warm, healthful cuisine of the Mediterranean.  For me nothing beats winter’s chill better than a steaming bowl of bouillabaisse or platter of grilled sardines.  While I can’t drop everything and jet off to Marsaille or Sardinia tonight, I can invite some friends over for an evening of Mediterreanean delights.  It’s a wonderful way to bring a little sunshine back into all of our lives. And what would Mediterranean night be without henna tattoos, shots of ouzo or, for the teetotalers, Turkish coffee?  Not …

I admit it – I own a lot of cookbooks.  Some of my favorites come not from renowned chefs or big publishing houses but from community fundraising committees.  Soft- covered, spiral bound, and with minimal art work, community cookbooks showcase the talent and ingenuity of home cooks while raising money for local churches, hospitals, parks and clubs.        Since the recipes are donated by a specific community, i.e. the members of the Junior Guild or Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, the offerings are invariably vast and varied.  Some, such as the three-ingredient beer bread, are simple and tasty.  Others, such as the 10-egg “English style cheese strata,” fall into the ‘creative cooking’ category.  A few, such as the apple sauce-cream cheese-lemon jello-Miracle Whip salad, are plain, old gastronomic nightmares.      Close to half of these books I inherited from my mother.  Although she didn’t particularly enjoy cooking, she did believe in supporting my hometown.  “No Fault Cooking” from the Liberty Mutual Club, “Northminster U.P. Church Cook Book,” “Favorite Recipes of Pennsylvania” courtesy of the Women’s Missionary Society, and “Cook’s Choice” …

Like millions of Americans, I traveled to my hometown this past Thanksgiving to visit friends and indulge in the foods of my youth.  Growing up in the former steel town of New Castle, Penn., I was raised on the cuisines of the immigrants who had staffed the now-defunct, suburban Pittsburgh mills.  Italian wedding soup, cheese-stuffed ravioli and spumoni ice cream. Polish pierogies, ham and cabbage and nut-filled kolache.  A tad naive as a child, I assumed that everyone in the nation consumed these foods. My assumptions about cuisine extended to some unusual, local offerings.  With a name like “city chicken,” I guessed that these bread crumb-coated squares of meat were served in every major urban center.  After all, this meal featured city-dwelling poultry.  A junior high school trip to New York dispelled that notion.  Not once did city chicken appear on a restaurant menu, a sure sign that I had been duped on the origins of this entree.  An article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette ended my belief that the dish contained any chicken.  City chicken is, in fact, made from cubed pork …