FOOD

According to Kim Severson's New York Times story, it's a booming business: meal kits, delivered to your door — everything you need to make, say, heirloom potato and kale hash — or blood orange roasted salmon. Blue Apron is one of more than 100 companies delivering DIY dinners to the doors of thousands of Americans – neither Nancy Leson nor I among them. Not only do we not subscribe to Blue Apron or its culinary compatriots, we don't even like the idea.

Editor's note: This segment originally aired April 28, 2010. Spring has finally arrived here in the Pacific Northwest and the signs are everywhere — flowers are blooming, birds are singing and lawnmowers are buzzing. But for Dick Stein, it’s the arrival of Yakima asparagus at the local grocery store that proves to be the surest sign that winter is behind us. In this installment of Food For Thought, Stein and Nancy Leson share two different ways to cook asparagus — one elaborate and the other

Those in the know say that in another ten years tipping in restaurants will be a thing of the past. Many eateries in the Seattle area have already abolished the practice. My Food for Thought co-conspirator, Nancy Leson, tells us that "Tom Douglas' restaurants, Renee Erikson's restaurants, El Gaucho, some of the Daniel's Broiler restaurants" have all gone no-tipping. "Here in Seattle, Ivar's was one of the first restaurants to go no-tipping," she said. Abolishing restaurant tipping may seem an

Nancy Leson brought me a bag of Nash's Organic triticale flour, "grown and milled on their farm," she told me "on the Olympic Peninsula." Triticale was a word from the past, I told her. As far as I knew, it was just 25th Century alien chow as in Star Trek's "The Trouble With Tribbles" episode. Non-Trekkie Nancy drew a blank on that one.

As I told Nancy Leson in this week's Food for Thought outing, "It's all just too sweet and slimy." I've been unhappy with the supermarket selection of hot dog relish for some time now. But I do like that neon green Chicago-style stuff. I never see it for sale in actual stores around here so I was driven to the web. "$14.95 for a jar of relish? Are you [expletive deleted] KIDDING me?" I enquired mildly. I knew I could make the stuff myself for a lot less than that. After all, how hard could it be

Editor's note: This segment originally aired April 8, 2015. I never liked fruit. Wouldn't even eat fruit baby food. Nancy Leson always hated calves liver. We both reviled asparagus. That was because we'd only had the canned kind, never fresh. Paraphrasing Mark Twain I told Nancy the difference between fresh and canned asparagus was the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

Editor's note: This segment originally aired April 8, 2015. I never liked fruit. Wouldn't even eat fruit baby food. Nancy Leson always hated calves...

"Food for Thought" has been pretty carnivorous lately, so I suggested to Nancy Leson that we talk tubers in this week's installment. Turns out that the queen of spuds had just acquired a recipe for a baked potato dense enough to produce its own event horizon. She got it from designer and fine artist David Owens Hastings, a student at the Chicken Pot Pie cooking class she taught recently at PCC. Here's the roast chicken and bacon twice baked potatoes dinner he designed. And yes, there is a

Just a few Food for Thoughts ago in our Restaurant Round-up, Nancy Leson mentioned the cumin-chili ribs at Seattle's Stateside Restaurant. They sounded ...

I first heard the term "condimentia" from Nancy Leson in this week's "Food for Thought." Nancy meant it as having to do with condiments. Just for fun, I...