Muffuletta
It’s meaty, it’s cheesy, it’s briny, and oh so good! Muffulettas (muff-a-lottas) are an Italian American sandwich invented in New Orleans by Sicilian immigrants. It boasts layers of salami, ham, cheese, and olive salad on a round Italian loaf topped with sesame seeds and happens to be my favorite childhood sandwich.
Madrid — Food Edition
When we travel, I’m in it for the food. I love street food and small casual establishments because I think that along with local grocery stores gives you a peak into the local fare that’s hard to see otherwise.
Tomato, Cucumber, and Onion Salad
A salad can’t get much more refreshing or more summery than tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions topped with olive oil and vinegar. It’s flashy and classy. It belongs equally at a potluck picnic or on a fine dinner table.
Fish with Mango Salsa
It’s fresh, light, decadent, and special. It’s summer sunshine on a plate and no one can imagine how something so simple is so delicious. No one would ever imagine it’s so simple.
Smothered Summer Squash
Smothered summer squash is a versatile side dish that plays well with almost anything. Pair it with grilled or baked meats, fish, or stews. The squash flavors are deep and sweet and will have you coming back for more.
Fish Courtbouillon
It’s spicy and soul-warming yet light with fish and bright with lemon juice. Fish courtbouillon is a Cajun dish that is often not found in restaurants and mostly unknown to people outside of South Louisiana.
Cucumber Chips
If you like dill pickle potato chips, you’ll love these little bites of crunchy delight. They’re tangy, a little bit spicy, and oh so crunchy!
Roasted Butternut Squash and Peanut Salad
This salad has almost everything I love in food, the deep notes of caramel in the squash, the brightness of fresh herbs, the grounding peanuts, and the fruity tanginess of pomegranate molasses.
Pecan and Date Cheese Ball AKA Party Magnet
This cheese ball especially excites the tastes buds with sweet, salty, crunchy, and creamy. It boasts blue cheese, goat cheese, roasted pecans, and dates. It’s so good Vivian Howard dubbed it “The Party Magnet”.
Dandelion Fritters
The cornmeal gives the most delightful crunch while the petals give you a nice chew. If you’re hesitant to try them, please do, they’re delicious. The fritters remind me of fried fish but with the most delicate of herb flavors.
Fig Cookies
These bites of delight are bold with dried fruit and spices and kept fresh with orange zest. The contrast of the smooth filling with the bite of fig seeds and crunch of nonpareils sprinkles gives the cookies a depth of excitement that most cookies don’t have.
Grits and Grillades
Grits and Grillades are the classiest and most comforting of all brunch dishes in New Orleans. It’s pieces of beef cooked in the most flavorful and complex of gravies. While tomato sauce takes the back seat, it creates depth of flavor and cloves gives it the unexpected hint of sweet and bitter that warms the soul on the greyest of winter days.
Yorkshire Christmas Pye
Nothing like spending Christmas with George Washington. Yorkshire Christmas Pye is a savory delight that warms the soul.
Chicken and Andouille Gumbo
Gumbo is one of the only foods I can think of that equally belongs at a fine dining restaurant, school cafeteria, hunting camp, tailgate party, Christmas parties, concession stands, and weeknight meals. Perhaps gumbo fits so many occasions because of its ease of cooking, forgiving nature, bold flavor, and soul-warming capabilities.
Beet and Burrata Salad with Grapefruit Vinaigrette
It’s fabulously fresh with a citrusy vinaigrette. It’s sassy with crunchy broiled grapefruit that brings tartness but sweet with yellow beets to cut the sour. Burrata brings a creaminess to the salad, yet remains light, and pistachios compliment all of the components.
Pomegranate and Cranberry Salad with Spiced Orange Vinaigrette
It’s light and feisty with spicy greens, mandarins, pomegranate, cranberries, and pecans. The salad is perfect to pair with a rich holiday meal or to use leftover Thanksgiving ingredients to create a filling salad. The beauty of this salad is almost anything goes and the point is to have a delicious dish while cleaning out your fridge.
Charred Carrots with Apple Brown-Butter Vinaigrette
Charring carrots brings on a marvelous complex of sweet and deep that is brightened yet grounded with apples, lemon, and browned butter.
Turnips as Cardoons
They’re buttery, decadent, and a little bit sweet. It’s everything a turnip should be: comforting, complex, a bit unexpected with just a hint of bitterness.