Category Archives: food!

The sleet and ice falling on us Saturday morning sure didn’t get us dreaming of a white Christmas, but it did that magical Michigan thing of helping us enjoy the great indoors all the more.  With the fireplace roaring and the lights on our 11’ tree twinkling, the hygge was like a scented oil engulfingContinue reading “stew!”

Harold Pierce makes the finest fried chicken in the Midwest, maybe the best on earth https://www.seriouseats.com/harolds-fried-chicken-chicago.  He deserves his self-appointed title as “Fried chicken king”. He started in ’51, catering mainly to south side black neighborhoods, with his first restaurant at 47th and Kenwood, right at the border of the ghetto and Hyde Park.  TheContinue reading “eat Harold’s”

Blame it on the Rockies.  We were at a Colorado Springs bar munching away at some delicious fries, moved to take a second glance at the menu which indicted they’d been fried in beef tallow.  Of course!  I’d realized just recently that frying is better done in animal fat.  Much maligned lard has fewer caloriesContinue reading “tallow, ho!”

I love shopping at Meijer’s.  None of the three stores in our area is very close, maybe 5 miles or so, but the trip down Platt passes by Bombay Grocers (source of peeled garlic for paste), the dump, and the cheapest gas station in town.  Added on todays trip was Gordon Food Services, right acrossContinue reading “meat!”

When I awoke around 3 yesterday, the weather report forecast another perfect spring day in AA, 75 degrees and sunny with enough wind later in the day to keep things interesting.  Dinner on the deck was a must, so I kicked things off by pulling out of the freezer a couple chunks that arrived fromContinue reading “a simple dinner”

Tim has been my colleague since ’88.  His Garden City MI working class upbringing has been refined though Harvard, U of M med school and residency (including a chief residency) and a San Francisco fellowship.  He married a dermatologist who’s smarter, better looking , and far more successful (measured by paycheck).  Both are still incrediblyContinue reading “thanks, Timbo!”

I recently posted my paean to the glories of garlic paste, which I’d just discovered for myself after nearly a lifetime of loving the bulb in its more intact forms https://wordpress.com/post/theviewfromharbal.com/1148.  I included a recipe for grilled marinated mushrooms which I’ve used for years and found the results superior to whatever I’d achieved with plainContinue reading “‘shrooms!”

My love of Allium sativum* isn’t lifelong, but it will surely last till the end of my days.   In my Dutch and German-English grandparents’ and parents’ days, eaters of the bulb were of the lower immigrant classes, identified by their reeking, something my always-clean folks wished to avoid.  Not till my widowed dad began takingContinue reading “garlic* paste”

Heard on 4th floor, Chicago House, West Quad circa 1970, every day around 5:30: “d’jeat?” “no d’jew?” “’squeat!”.   And on this momentous day in Michigan “squeat” out! is possible, and I don’t mean “outside dining”!  In honor of this day, which it seems we’ve awaited for an eternity, I’d like to recount the finest mealContinue reading “‘squeat*!”