Food

Travel: Five Tips for Staying Healthy While Traveling

Travel: Morning on St. George Island, Florida

Farm Chicks Antiques Show this weekend

Grande Ronde Cellars began as a partnership between four men with the same love – for grapes from the Walla Walla valley. Dave Westfall, David Page, John Mueller and Michael Manz launched the winery in 1997 with grapes from the same vineyards that were supplying fruit to acclaimed wineries such as Leonetti Cellars and L’Ecole No. 41.

When it comes to packing a picnic basket, sandwiches are almost always the stars of the menu. And why not? They are easy to eat with your hands, pack well and are versatile enough to keep everyone happy. And for the rest of the meal, we tend to lean toward yet more finger food – chips, cookies, hopefully some fruit. In other words, gobs of carbs. But vegetables? Not so much.

These veggie burgers draw their flavor from vegetables, and that’s the way it should be. The most foolproof here are the grilled portabello mushrooms, so it’s no wonder Robin Donovan serves them up in “Campfire Cuisine.” They’re sturdy and so easy to prepare. Spray the caps with olive oil, shake on a little salt and pepper, and grill. They’re ready in about 15 minutes.

Slapping burgers, steaks and ribs on the grill is a tried-and-true Memorial Day tradition, but many grillers say concerns about healthy eating are changing their backyard barbecue habits. In the latest GrillWatch Survey from the fire masters at Weber, 61 percent of those who responded said their grilling style has changed in the last year. What’s the No. 1 change they’re making? They’re putting more vegetables on the grates and picking leaner meats and poultry.

When the weather turns warm, I find myself craving the smell and taste of a great homemade burger off the grill. So what makes a great burger? There are a few simple rules. But if you remember just one of them, it should be that less really is more. Which is to say, the less you add to your ground beef, the less you handle the meat when mixing it, and the less you flip it while grilling, the better burger you get in the end.

Travel: Four Good Reasons to Consider a Family Cruise

It’s the beginning of farmers market season in the Inland Northwest. One thing I look forward to each year is the early season fresh English peas. Not to be confused with snow peas, with very thin edible pods and tiny undeveloped seeds, or crisp crunchy snap peas, English peas must be shucked. Their sweet, plump seeds are encased in large, tough pods that must be removed before eating. Typically available here the end of May, English peas prefer the cooler growing temperatures of late spring and early summer. They’re here for only a few short weeks before the heat of summer arrives, so be on the lookout for them.

Barbecue chicken is one of my favorite summertime dishes. I like every part of it – the tomato-based sauce (the spicier the better), the crispy skin, even the bones. And taste aside, it’s also relatively healthy, at least as compared to such sundry first cousins as grilled and/or smoked ribs, brisket or pulled pork. It’s chicken, after all, and it wears that lean protein halo. Unfortunately, when it’s prepared with its skin and bones, and slathered with a sugary sauce, barbecue chicken is very nearly as caloric as its brethren. Know why chicken skin is so delicious? It’s high in fat.