PHILADELPHIA -- At The Franklin Fountain ice cream parlor in Philadelphia's Old City neighborhood, a bust of Benjamin Franklin gazes benevolently down on two antique stainless steel bowls: one holds tiny, rod-shaped rainbow ice cream toppings, while the other holds chocolate ones.

For hundreds of years, or at least since 2004 when the shop ...Read more

I miss my husband when he's out of town for work (of course), but come dinner time, I can't help but appreciate being able to cook whatever I want for dinner without worrying about whether he'll walk away from the table happy.

Translation: Though I usually steer clear because he's highly allergic to shellfish, finally, I can fill up on ...Read more

Peas have a special place in French culture and cuisine. One of the earliest cultivated food crops, they achieved a special status at Versailles in Louis XIV’s court, where peas were considered “potager du roi,” or royal fruit. King Louis liked to eat his peas raw.

Peas should be finger food, especially those delightfully plump sugar snap...Read more

Hot dogs and creamy, mayo-heavy picnic sides like potato and macaroni salad are quintessential warm weather eats because they're both cheap and easy to pull together on short notice.

But no one can blame you if you want to stretch beyond the basics with dishes that are a little bolder — but still within the general framework of what we ...Read more

At the Mamiche bakeries in the 9th and 10th arrondissements of Paris, their famous pains au chocolat and croissants depend on an essential but increasingly scarce ingredient — butter.

The bakery’s regular supplier can no longer provide a steady flow of French beurre de tourage, a type of flat butter used to make the pastries. Mamiche has ...Read more

In victory, top chefs are much like the classiest of professional tennis players: self-deprecatory, admiring of their rivals, grateful to their teachers. A few weeks ago, just after his restaurant Maido was proclaimed No. 1 among the 50 Best Restaurants in the World at a ceremony in Turin, Italy, Mitsuharu Tsumura told me, “There is ...Read more

Free Slurpees are back at 7-Eleven as the 24-hour convenience store chain celebrates its 98th birthday this Friday.

On July 11, 7-Eleven offers its patrons a free small Slurpee drink at participating 7-Eleven, Speedway and Stripes locations nationwide while the Mountain Dew Infinite Swirl flavor makes its return for a limited time.

Fans of the...Read more

CHICAGO -- “I think it was important for us to be Black,” said Jamhal Johnson, co-founder of Chicago’s local Moor’s Brewing Co. “We put a Black man on the beer can.”

For Johnson and longtime friends Damon Patton and Anthony Bell, that’s been one part of a well-considered growth and branding strategy for Moor’s Brewery Co., the ...Read more

Tender vegetables soak up this tangy marinade and turn delicately smoky and tender on a hot grill. These kebabs make a wonderful side dish with grilled meats or fish. You can substitute the zucchini with yellow summer squash or use both if you wish.

Marinated Grilled Vegetable Kebabs

Serves 4

Active Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 20 ...Read more

Cold cereals can be anything from a quick and easy breakfast to a comforting midnight snack and many things in between. Cereal was first developed in a sanitarium to aid with digestion. Over the years it transformed into something that was more sugar and less nutrition. Fortunately, the pendulum has swung back a bit. While there are plenty of ...Read more

This is the dish I often serve in the summer. I make up a double, sometimes triple batch of the onion compote and have it ready for simple barbecues. You can purchase sausages that are uncooked or precooked, which will vary the cooking time. It is important to make sure the sausages are cooked through, and you can check this by cutting into them...Read more

Now’s the time to enjoy crisp lettuce salads brimming with crunchy vegetables, fresh herbs and a refreshing dressing. Add a crispy-edged grilled protein, such as steak, chicken or fish, and that gorgeous garden salad transforms into summer’s ultimate meal.

When it’s grilled steak piled over those greens, the salad deserves the crown. The ...Read more

Everyone’s mother has a signature potato salad recipe, at least in the South it seems. I’ve got about four versions that I rotate between, including an Ina Garten recipe that uses whole-grain mustard and my mother-in-law’...Read more

When I was growing up, it wasn’t unusual for me to plop down at the dinner table in my Rainbow Brite T-shirt and stirrup pants to a plate of Shake ‘N Bake pork chops. Introduced in 1965 to mimic fried chicken, Shake ‘N Bake is a store-bought seasoned breading mix that came with a bag that you could shake the seasoning and meat together in....Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — There are recipes representing 32 countries in a new cookbook, and the authors have the pantries to prove it. The Peruvian pepper paste aji panca, timur peppercorns from Nepal, Vietnamese ngo gai or culantro, black jeera seeds for lamb biryani — they’re all a new part of their cooking repertoire now.

A trio of authors — ...Read more

Summer evenings draw me out of the kitchen, into the soft light and gentle breezes. Our dinners should be effortless and casual.

Some nights it’s just my husband and me, but often friends stroll by, swing in for a drink and stay for something to eat. My only challenge is how to stock up for such sweet spontaneity. What to keep on hand? ...Read more

Like many home cooks, I keep a kitchen garden planted with herbs during the summer growing season.

I have a pretty good hand with basil and rosemary, and my parsley generally does pretty well, too. Yet one of the most prolific — or dare I say dastardly — patches of green contains mint.

The bully of the herb world, mint is quick to take ...Read more

Like a good summer movie, a great sandwich should be full of delightful familiar ingredients sparked with a few good surprises. And like a good plot, the sandwich should be built on a sturdy foundation.

But first, let’s agree on the definition of a sandwich as opposed to a hamburger, hot dog, taco, wrap, empanada or burrito. To quote the ...Read more

DENVER -- Colorado whiskey continues to impress, earning numerous accolades at a recent spirits competition and sweeping the podium for the best American-made single malts.

The International Whisky Competition, founded in 2010, announced the winners of its annual contest in late June and local distillers made an impressive showing while also ...Read more

I hate my wife’s cousin Deb, whom I love.

Deb is the sort of person you would describe as “neat,” if “neat” were still a word that is used to describe a person, which it is not.

She is an old, unrepentant hippie, complete with a stint in a commune on her resumé. Although she lives in a small town in the middle of Ohio, that small ...Read more