liv bites

I murdered a lobster in class this week. If it sounds dramatic, it was. Most people take the easy way out when it comes to crustaceans — submerge them while they’re still alive in boiling water, and they die instantly. But according to my culinary instructor, there’s actually a more humane way to go about [...]

When it comes to food, my assistant and I agree on most things. He’s turned me on to his loves like olives and peppers, and I introduced him to the wonderful world of Greek yogurt. But there is nothing he loves more than meat — especially sausage. It constantly impresses me how he can sneak [...]

We’ve been cutting up chickens on a daily basis at Tante Marie’s over the past couple of weeks, so dinner this week was more practice: Roasted Chicken and an Arugula and Butternut Squash Salad with Pomegranate Seeds. The recipe for that is still in the works, but even more interesting was what I decided to [...]

Gazpacho has been calling my name this season. First it was the Late Summer Tomato Soup in my Frank Stitt cookbook, Frank Stitt’s Southern Table. Then it was reading other bloggers’ chilled soup experiments, like this one at EatLiveRun. The last straw was the latest issue of Cook’s Illustrated, featuring their Creamy Gazpacho Andaluz, which [...]

I know I just wrote about how easy it is to take instant couscous camping, but the truth is that my heart belongs to the big, pearl, Middle Eastern couscous over the smaller African variety. I know I’m not alone. The larger grains are softer and chewier than their cousins, more like a satisfying pasta [...]

Remember when I described my lunches comprised of quinoa and veggies and bragged that I never get tired of them? Well, I finally did, so I made some hummus. I rarely eat hummus anymore because my assistant is allergic to legumes, but making it myself reminded me how much I adore it. In fact, before [...]

I was flipping through my new Southern Living the other morning before work, and my coffee cup stopped en route to my lips when I saw their featured seasonal ingredient. I love fresh figs, and it seems like they are one of those tricky fruits that’s only good for about a second out of the [...]

Although most people imagine Mississippi as a hub for consuming grits, my mom only makes them once a year, at Christmas brunch. Along with about a hundred other side and main dishes, she whips up her version of gruyère grits that I adore, topped with mouth-watering grillades that take her all day to make (it’s [...]

I tend to blog about my farmer’s market creations more than my grocery store ones, probably because I’m just more excited about the former. Aisles of flour and dishwashing detergent don’t do too much for me. But on Saturday my assistant and I built a lunch entirely based on our findings at the market, a [...]

I realized recently that I’ve written about a million posts on my dinner experiments, but almost none on my lunches. That’s, of course, because I’m always eating lunch at work — and meals just aren’t as much of a to-do when you’re enjoying them in front of a computer. Still, I actually put a decent [...]