Cooking

Labor Day is Monday, and many will be planning a holiday dinner or barbeque at home. Whether preparing a Labor Day meal for two or hosting a California-style garden dinner for six- such as those featured in Sunset magazine- today’s recipes can produce dishes that will fit right in.

LOS ANGELES -- For Rebecca Zeitlin, packing her 5-year-old son's school lunch is always full of surprises. Offer him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at home and he won't touch it. But pack it in his lunch with fruits, vegetables and a small treat and he'll dive in. He will "chow down" on applesauce at preschool parties. But if she served him applesauce at home, "he'd look at me like I was ...

It’s hard but rewarding work coming up with recipes to share every week for this column. The inspiration can come from a variety of places: trends I’ve seen on social media, cookbooks that I wish to highlight, scientific studies and new-to-me creations from my own brain. The latter usually begins with a single ingredient, often seasonal, and then I let my culinary intuition and flavor research go from there. May I present to the court exhibit 3,894: this gochujang eggplant stir-fry.

The rich, earthy mushroom known for adding a sublime finishing touch to a dollop of whipped cream, a bubbling dish of fondue or a steaming plate of pasta just got a little fancier.

I know I say this every year, but it seemed like zucchini season got off to a slow start.

LYNDEN, Whatcom County — Even if you’ve never been to Lynden, there’s a good chance you’ve eaten the raspberries grown here. They’re just not the ones you find in the plastic clamshell in the produce section. Labeled generically as “U.S.-grown raspberries,” you’ll find them all over the grocery store: in the frozen triple berry blend and the raspberry lemon muffins at Costco. In Tillamook’s ...

It’s that time of year when return-to-school activities are ramping up. Parents, kids and school staff are increasingly focusing on preparations for the approaching school year. Registrations, launch conferences, purchasing school clothes and supplies, transportation and meal planning, obtaining physicals for athletics and renting a trombone for the aspiring marching band musician in the family. The to-do list can seem endless.

There is no escaping the sense that we are living in the era of peak protein, a moment in time in which reverence for the macronutrient borders on religion.

During summer in my hometown of New Orleans, it can be sweltering even at 7 a.m. But I don’t sweat it. I’ve whittled down the time it takes for me to get out of bed and prepare my morning cold-brew coffee to a record low. Fill a cup with ice, splash in some concentrate and water, and I’m good to go.

We all have our favorite takeout foods. It’s always a pleasure to prepare them at home. Here are three of my all-time favorite takeout burgers and sandwiches, which I don’t make nearly often enough.

My most recent takeout experience at Chipotle – one of our teenager’s favorite sources of quick food – didn’t go so well.

Summer is picnic time, with its welcoming weather, lush greenery and active wildlife. It’s the perfect time to enjoy the many large and small parks around us. Picnics provide an opportunity to ease our mental gears and momentarily escape the usual rigors of our busy lives. Picnics aren’t uniquely American, although we Americans have undoubtedly set the record for distances traveled to picnics, given our obsession with automobiles and our appetite for travel.

My lovely wife, Gina, has been trapped in the kitchen for the past three weeks, working hard to keep up with all the baking needs. She looks tired. I feel like I should feel more guilty about it, too, but I don’t. In truth, it pleases me to see her sidetracked with a hobby that doesn’t detract from those of my own. I don’t say this to be mean, but after years of distractions from my own projects to complete Honey Do’s, or impromptu tasks that suddenly spring up as urgent necessities, I feel elated with the possibilities the current situation presents.

There are few types of food, let alone sweets, that everyone can agree on. But if I had to pick one with widespread, if not universal, appeal, it would be rustic, nostalgic and casual baked fruit desserts. You know the kind: best served warm, ideally with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and easily made with whatever fruit you have around.

A multilayered dip with eye-catching appeal is always an attention grabber at a gathering, drawing everyone to it. And it carries a conversation-starting spirit of discovery, because while each layer is visible, the best way to find out what they’re made of is to dig in and explore.

The first time I heard the phrase “your eyes are bigger than your stomach,” it was uttered by my father at Luby’s Cafeteria in San Angelo, Texas.

Summer is swiftly rolling along, and Independence Day is just ahead. Planning and preparations are in full swing. Many will be traveling over an extended three- or four-day holiday weekend. It’s America’s 250th Independence Day. A lot can happen in 250 years, and a lot has. We still have much to celebrate and be thankful for, irrespective of the turmoil we see around us. So, relax, celebrate and be safe this Fourth.

Some of Hawa Hassan’s earliest sense memories are the smell of burning tires and the sound of crackling gunfire.

Sandwiches are one of the most prolific assembled foods on the planet. If sandwiches were an animal species, they would be right up there with ants for being adaptive, industrious and wildly successful. Like ants, sandwiches can lift a hundred times their weight and can thrive virtually anywhere, in one form or another. Sandwiches are portable and frequently carried to work, school and picnics. They’re the perfect provision for all sorts of outings.