Fried chicken is my all-time favorite food, so it’s no surprise that I’ve tried dozens of recipes looking for that perfect batch. While some were OK, others produced overcooked – er, burnt – crusts and dry meat or delectably crunchy crusts with pink, undercooked meat.

When buying chicken at the grocery store, most people purchase a specific cut. Buying a whole chicken probably doesn’t appeal to most as a lot of us save cooking a whole bird for that one special annual occasion – Thanksgiving. OK, maybe you do it twice, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

If the coronavirus pandemic was not already enough (and it really is), this last weekend’s record-setting hazardous air quality in Spokane made me give up (for the most part). Like much of the population, I have become a shut-in now to keep myself and others safe.

Eating vegetables raw fits not only our summer mindsets but also the produce available. Radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, celery and lettuces: Take a bite from your market bag, and if they’re ripe, they’re pretty good. Snappy-sweet. Crunchy-crisp. And we didn’t have to do anything to get there.

When it comes to Rosh Hashanah desserts, apple cake or honey cake might sound most familiar to Ashkenazi (Eastern and Central European) Jews celebrating the Jewish New Year. But the Jewish diaspora is as wide as its global recipe box, which boasts other sweet delights.

Sometimes a serendipitous food discovery can send you down a delicious path. I’ve always loved shrimp. My husband, who grew up on Bayou Lafourche in South Louisiana, likes to say his family was so poor they had to eat shrimp every day.

During the course of four weeks, from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, the United States will toast Hispanic Heritage Month, a celebration and sign of respect that began with President Lyndon B. Johnson as a week but was expanded two decades later by President Ronald Reagan in 1988.

OK, readers, this is one of those recipes – one of those recipes that you must make. I mean, you should be making all my recipes, but life happens. I forgive you. However, you can’t live your life another day without having these sopapilla cheesecake bars.

As I write this Running Tab column on deadline on the late Friday afternoon before the Labor Day weekend, my mind keeps wandering to my only plans for the next three days: salmon fishing on the Columbia River about two hours outside town on Saturday morning.

We have a motto in our family: “Moderation is not our forte.” We go big with most things we do. When we start a TV series, we binge it until it’s done. When we go waterskiing, we go multiple days a week all summer long.

Here's a chance to taste history in an unusual red wine from southwestern Spain, as well as the future in a pinot noir from a cutting-edge, high-altitude winery in Patagonia. We round out our late summer wine list with a rosé, a hearty white Rioja from Spain and a juicy red from Northern Italy.

I'm happy for the existence of frosty desserts on the lighter, more healthful side – which I lean into most of the time – and I enjoy playing around in my kitchen with the many possibilities. One dependable pleasure is a sherbet-like frozen fruit whip.

The Williamson family has been looking for a distinctively crisp white wine to pour in their tasting room on Idaho’s historic Sunnyslope in the Snake River Valley. Judges at the 2020 Idaho Wine Competition affirm the Williamsons made a delicious decision when they planted the brilliant Spanish white grape albariño.

This year's presidential campaign is like no other: The conventions were virtual, there's no baby kissing, and folksy diner visits are out. One other way that it will differ from those in the past quarter-plus century? There will be no first lady's cookie recipe contest sponsored by Family Circle.

Eggs. They’ve been over easy, scrambled, poached and boiled – you know, the usual. From sunny side up to frittatas, we’ve had this protein-packed breakfast star in every way possible – or have we? If you haven’t heard of “egg clouds” (also called “egg nests”), it’s an egg-citingly new and fun way to enjoy the first meal of the day.

Beer goes back a long, long way – after humans learned how to plant, grow and harvest grains, it didn’t take them long to stumble on the fermentation process that would create beer and other alcoholic delights. Here’s a look at the history of and the numbers behind the suds:

It’s that time of year again, tomato season, when I spend ample time devouring and writing about the glorious vegetable and then wait for the emails and DMs telling me I should know a tomato is actually a fruit.

One of the saving graces of this pandemic for my son has been his magnetic tiles. He puts them together and takes them apart as often and in as many ways as he wants. I feel the same way about milk, flour, eggs and butter: Four basic ingredients that can be mixed and matched and varied to create so many dishes.

This spring, horrified Americans watched farmers dump milk and plow under vegetables, but the story of food waste and the novel coronavirus didn’t end there.