Food Guys

This is a moist and mildly spicy gingerbread with the taste of cider and applesauce. Served plain, it makes a marvelous snack. When offered along with a spoonful of the cider cream, it would be a welcome dessert after a hearty meal.

You've harbored a stash of cupboard and refrigerated condiments since the last century. Food Guys Jon and Greg suggest novel uses for them.

After seeing Dr. Cate Shanahan on television, Food Guy Greg Patent is all-in with her advice about cooking fats and oils to avoid. Greg gets worked up telling Food Guy Jon Jackson about PUFA*-rich seed oils (*"polyunsaturated fatty acids.") that Shanahan says cause metabolic damage and inflammation.

Greg Patent makes the most of tart cherry season by preserving as much of the fruit as he can while setting aside cherries for this recipe. "Fresh sour pie cherries are as precious as rubies," Greg writes. "Bright and shiny like the gems they resemble, the sour Montmorency cherries have a short season (only 2 to 3 weeks in July) in western Montana, so I always pick some off a neighbor’s tree to use fresh and enough to freeze."

The Food Guys, Jon and Greg, discuss cookbooks they returned to while staying home during the spring of 2020. They're all old favorites, loaded with "context," and for Jon, they've reminded him of some tried-and-true but forgotten recipes that he's since resumed making.

Food Guy Greg Patent usually enjoys locally-grown strawberries raw and ungarnished, but he makes an exception for this pie recipe. The kicker? It includes canned pineapple. Read on to find out why this makes the pie not an atrocity, but a winner.

The Food Guys, Greg and Jon, are always grateful for the chance to prowl the farmers markets for vegetables. In June in Montana, they find favorites like pea shoots, garlic scapes, morel mushrooms and baby bok choy. Jon's been busy enjoying vegetable-rich recipes like Bang Bang Cauliflower and 15-Minute Sesame Ginger Noodles.

Frequent baker and Food Guy Greg Patent complains about his fellow locked-down bakers buying up all the flour in March and April 2020. "Sounds like the flour was coming by Conestoga wagon," says Food Guy Jon Jackson.

There's a salmonfly hatch on. The Food Guys, Jon and Greg, reminisce about fishing and cooking the catch.

Salmoriglio (sal-more-EEL-ee-yo) is an Italian lemon and olive oil sauce, marinade and dipping condiment for fish, chicken and practically any vegetable. Once you make it, you’ll wonder why you'd never heard of it before. That’s what happened to "Food Guy" Greg Patent: he lived for an entire year in Italy without ever learning of salmoriglio.