Author: Stephanie March

  • Who Are You Calling Disorganized?

    As with others who work in the food business, I—and especially my chef husband—have had new friends express their reservations about cooking for us. (Usually this comes out over a few glasses of wine at our house.) But in truth, the only real differences between a home cook and a food pro are time and…

  • Consider the Egg

    In Chicago to open a restaurant, I was invited to dinner with my friend Elizabeth and her parents. Elizabeth’s father, Dr. Pepper (no lie), had just completed a crazy-difficult robotic arm techno-surgery. He hurriedly gave us some scant details before turning to me and asking how the restaurant opening was going. The robotic arm story…

  • The Gow Choy Express

    The average home cook, it turns out, has only about a dozen rotating specialties in his or her repertoire. Pot roast, meatloaf, spaghetti, you know the drill. This type of déjà vu dining becomes especially depressing in March. While the lucky few fly away to warmer climes and snack on fresh tropical fruit, the rest…

  • Out of Your Shell…

    It’s hard to admit, but my real first encounter with escargot was at Bunny’s Bar and Grill in St. Louis Park, with a flock of hospitality bats. Some of my fellow bartenders thought it would be funny to order the strange appetizer—what was escargot Bourguignon doing there alongside nachos?—and someone else thought it would be…

  • How the Doughnut Got Its Hole

    It’s time to celebrate the unassuming doughnut, the stalwart companion of countless cups of fresh-brewed coffee, the humble fried hoop that is everyman’s golden cake. Why now, you might ask? Because January marks the opening of a long stretch of winter contemplation; also, there has yet to be a holiday misgiving that can’t be quietly…

  • A Tisket, A Tasket

    There are happy gift baskets, and there are sad gift baskets. The sad ones are given by well-meaning souls who see shrink-wrapped fruit and think, “Oh joy!” Oftentimes these come year after year, stuffed with salamis and tissue paper, implying nothing other than, “Happy holidays, have a snack.” Worse yet is the revelation, upon stopping…