FOOD

Even I had to laugh. After all my years in the kitchen I'd never had much interest in a cuisine on the very short list of world's greatest. Then a YouTube video from the French Cooking Academy made me a believer.

“I don't know if it's because we've all been feeling extra emotional lately or what,” Nancy Leson told me. “But I've been thinking about the emotional attachments I have to certain kitchen tools.” She went on to describe the giant cleaver taking up real estate on their knife rack even though they never use it. Get rid of it? Never. It was Mac's grandmother's and they love to see it there. My wife, the lovely and talented Cheryl DeGroot has always loved the kitchen treasure she hauled from the

Nancy Leson and I didn't bother with any introductory chitchat to begin this week's show. I hit the music and we were off to the food races. While our favorite foods may not be yours (yet), I hope this list will prove a resource for those times when you just can't decide between cold Velveeta on toasted English muffin or fried noodles dipped in fermented tofu. We kick this week's off with our seventh-grade lunch favs and continue (downhill, in my case) from there. Please feel free to channel

I demurred when my wife, the Lovely & Talented Cheryl DeGroot, dared me to use an entire batch of dough to make one gigantic bagel. But then she double-dog dared me, so I really had no choice.

This just in! Nancy Leson's report on responses to a recent Twitter thread asking “Are you really !#&! tired of cooking?” I was shocked — simply shocked — to learn that after all these months of home isolation many people really are !#&! tired of cooking. Not me, though.

It's always sounded like fun to have an ice cream machine. But years back I also thought it would be fun to have a fondue pot. See where that's going? After all, how often would I really make my own ice cream? So I asked Nancy Leson if she had a machine and how often she used it.

Nancy Leson thinks there's more sharing going on these days, especially of food, and I agree. Just down the block from us in East Tacoma a neighbor is cultivating two raised beds of produce, free for the taking. Nancy's friends have been dropping off everything from home made masks to strawberries to fresh seafoood. I need to get to know these people.

Note to the reader: This Food for Thought post about woks is certified to be pun-free. An email from listener Nancy B suggesting we do a show on woks got Nancy L and me talking about things you can do with them other than stir-fry. It's certainly the most versatile cooking vessel in my kitchen.

This story originally aired Aug. 21, 2019. Those colorful bean seeds I traded our cow for worked only too well. No vine to the sky, but plenty of green beans here on the ground. So many that we're having trouble keeping up. One day the thought came to me: Green bean spaghetti. Could there be a recipe for such a thing? In .47 seconds I discovered 14,100,000 of them.

This story originally aired July 24, 2019. Nancy Leson 's apricot tree, a Puget Gold she's had for 21 years, only puts out fruit about every five years. This was one of those years, and a bumper crop it was. With all those apricots the only thing to do was make apricot jam. There was just one problem. "Over the years," she says, “the one thing I have failed at is jam-making.” Not anymore.