#20: You need high hope to get to greatness Fourteen years before we opened the Deli in 1982, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton went out west to travel. In 2019, writer and permaculturist Fred Bahnson published a thoughtful piece about that trip, entitled “On the Road with Thomas Merton.” Aside from the fact that I […]

Buy at the Farmer’s Market, fry ’em up in your own frying pan When I was working on Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating some twenty years or so ago, I created small sidebars that I called “Travelers Advisories.” They were about foods that I really loved, but weren’t available in the United States. Iberico ham was one […]

Sharing some background on our “Community Shares” program On his new album All Round the Light Said, Irish singer songwriter Joshua Burnside sings about “A Man of High Renown.” Who we hold in high renown, who we learn from, who we admire, and who we aspire to emulate has a huge influence on how we live […]

A wonderful role model for “milk’s leap into immortality” Writer Clifton Fadiman, quite a radical back in the middle decades of the 20th century, once famously called cheese “milk’s leap toward immortality.”When I eat this delicious, full flavored, creamy, and complex Kentucky Rose from Kenny Mattingly and crew down in south central Kentucky, it immediately […]

A fun way to liven up your summer eating Mayonnaise is hardly an attention-getter in modern-day America. But it wasn’t always that way. The first known published recipe for it appeared in 1750. It became popular in Europe and then in the U.S. really only in the 19th century. It was first sold in jars […]

Bringing early summer flavors together in the salad bowl This is another easy and excellent taste of summer that Tammie and I have been trying out different versions of. It’s refreshing, good for you, and a delicious pairing with almost anything else you’re having for dinner. Yotam Ottolenghi says, “A well-made salad must have a certain uniformity; […]