A month or so ago I ate dinner with my parents and Mom had made mini-crescent rolls stuffed with cream cheese. I must have eaten 12 of them. Because it was just an addition to dinner, Mom kept them tame with just cream cheese. She usually adds other ingredients mixed into the cream cheese before…

Snow covers the grill – again.     The warm weather was upon us. I had grilled for the first time this spring. And then Mother Nature says “Not so fast giddy grill man!” Last night New York got enough snow to create a light-slushy layer on everything – including the grill I had bragged…

A charcoal grill and the view of the RFK (formerly Triboro) Bridge in New York City. I hope everyone took advantage of the hint of spring that was given to us last week for most of the Midwest and Northeast. I went crazy. Three meals in two days – all on charcoal! What makes this…

I love to caramelize onions. Their flavor can’t be beat and they can enhance just about any dish. That’s why I love to make this soup. It is amazing how onions are transformed from their pungent raw form into a savory and sweet delight with just a little time over some heat. I read many…

Anyone who knows me well has had one of my gourmet pizzas — they’re a specialty of mine. I’m adding this pizza to my pizza-party menu from now on. As I mention in the introduction, the egg and cheese together give this pie a creamy-goodness unlike anything I have ever had on pizza. The breakfast…

I said in the introduction to this column, I remember having pot roast quite often when I was a kid. The first time I made it on my own, I was talking to Dad on the phone and I proudly told him what I was making. He quickly replied “I could care less if I…

My 9 year-old niece, Mariah, shares my love for cooking. She’s into making salads. At first she would use loads of salad dressing, adding a glob with every ingredient she put in the bowl. This led to some soupy salads. In time, she has refined her skill and is actually quite good at putting together…

I love fresh seafood and it is very hard to find at an affordable price in the Midwest. I stumbled across a small seafood market in Fort Wayne and decided to check it out. It was a bit pricey but I couldn’t pass on the fresh mussels. The monger told me he had just gotten…

The inspiration for this week’s column is the worst snowstorm that I have ever witnessed. I lived through three blizzards when I was a New Yorker, but none of those prepared me for a blizzard blown by 54 mph winds over the open fields of Indiana. The night before the storm really hit ‘Busco, my…