Local Pizza Made Good
Pizzaiolo Chris Hill mines his home turf of the Northwest Kingdom of the Garden State for key ingredients he uses to build the pies he fires and sells from his food truck, A Slice of New Jersey.
Flours and Fishes
The tops of the two weeks just past show off three very different uses of flours and two polar-opposite approaches to fishes.
A Baguette and a Jar of Pickles
Sometimes the most important things in life – essentials for a proper picnic, for instance – come to you without asking, These are the gifts you will cherish the most.
Veg Direct
The Garden State is missing a vital link between our farms and our independent ethnic restaurants. Until we make what’s available widely accessible, we’ll never know our true potential.
Spruce Blue Jam
Spruce tips and Hammonton blueberries find happiness together in a Pine Barrens Post jam. Which in turn inspires a new take on an old recipe.
Having It All: Four Fields Farm
With multiples of skills and a heartfelt mindfulness of place, Liz Balchin and Ryan Lacz are creating a diversified farm in Warren County that maximizes use of their lands while respecting every inch of it to the max.
Grilled Radicchio Salad
Welcome the season on the horizon with a salad that uses the grill and accents anxious for action. Kiera’s how-to brings it all home.
Luzviminda, an Excursion to the Philippines
We’re now in the leanest months of the year for Garden State produce, which means it’s the right time to take a meal-length vacation to one of our transporting ethnic restaurants.
Wrench in the Food Chain
There's an ever-increasing number of restaurants with out-of-state corporate ownership in New Jersey, eateries with homogenous menus that make no or little attempt to speak to the Garden State's unique foodways and terroir. What exactly are these chain restaurants doing for our local identity and our overall economy?
Welcome Revisits
Think you know muffins, hummus, duck, Asian seafood bowls and layer cakes? Well, not so fast: These versions made by pros with superpowers show how thoughtful tweaks can improve a standard.
Oat Bowl
After you’ve baked your breads, cookies and muffins, made your granola and smoothies and crumbles, grab your bag of River Valley Community Grains rolled oats and realize it’s also what’s for dinner.
Hub Hosts Bakery Pop-Up
At Marksboro Mills, life and commerce are as they should be, with bakers who use the locally grown, on-site-milled grains in their farm-to-oven baked goods selling them directly to you. At your friendly, convenient neighborhood hub.
Norma’s Spinach Turnovers
It’s an easy-as-pie any meal, any time heat-then-eat food made by the folks at a landmark restaurant in Cherry Hill and sold at its adjoining grocery.
Eddie Aguilar, The Stirling Hotel
The newest inductee into TPW’s chef-picks-chef society of top toques has mastered work-life balance all the while expressing his far-ranging experiences and talents on every plate. As his fan and selector notes, he’s “never lost his flair.”
Tortilla de Patatas Plus
Chipping away at a world-famous recipe offers enlightenment and lighthearted fun.
Cheesemaking Does Not Stand Alone
As an integral part of a sustainable food system, the craft and its products are culturally valuable, nutritionally valuable and an intrinsic part of social and ecological landscapes everywhere. The guest writers of this special Life on the Farm column are committed to small-scale farmstead cheesemaking, practicing it year-round at their acclaimed Bobolink Dairy & Bakehouse in Holland Township.
Medford
Independent-minded creatives and entrepreneurs fuel a culinary community that offers quality and choice. It’s where “shoppe centers” and a village downtown solidified in the 1800s fend off common suburban sprawl.
Personal Passions
Chefs at restaurants that touch bases around the world might be anchored in the Garden State, but they stay true to their roots with dishes both poignant and powerful.
Winter Workhorse: Cabbage
A stew of the red version of the cruciferous vegetable with red onions and red lentils brings its own dose of sunshine to a last-leg-of-winter day.
Moaaz Mediterranean Grill
Can the fast-casual concept leave a cuisine that has flourished for ages in veritable ruins? Or is it more about sloppy prep and careless counter work that is causing an eatery in Rahway to do a disservice to its marquee foods?
True Food Love
Who would our culinary artists most like to have cook for them on Valentine's Day? And what would that special dish be? The answers are more than heartwarming.
Atul Bakery
Savories and sweets from a bakeshop born in Gujarat, India, and taking seed in the Garden State offer alternatives to usual grab-and-go fare. Will it give a long-timer in the game a run for its money?
Tuna-stuffed Eggs
This Super Bowl munchie is game-day ready, thanks to a couple of power players you likely have stashed in your kitchen.
Ehoumaki, for Good Luck
Thick sushi rolls containing seven ingredients are eaten whole and in contemplative silence on a day that toasts the coming of Spring in Japan. At Mitsuwa in Edgewater, Setsubun is celebrated with a class that’s decidedly family-style.
Ringing Endorsements
Finding that just-right ingredient can spark inspiration to create something quite different than the usual dishes for a day that's become a significant eating holiday.
Known Quantities Revisited: 2-5-24
It might be a classic given a fresh look or perhaps simply the ultimate in respect. Either way, the favorite eats of the past two weeks more than pass the endurance test.
Can Cauliflower Be Cathartic?
If you use Barkha Cardoz’s masalas and let her culinary wisdom seep into your consciousness, yes – eating cauliflower can be a seriously transformative experience.
A Home-grown Bastion in Bergen
Closter Farm stands proud on 7 productive acres in the Garden State’s most populous county, growing year-round for its community under strict organic standards.
Luis Blasini-Sinchi, 7 Doors Down Ramen Co.
His life and cross-cultural experiences are expressed on the plates the newest member of TPW’s chef-picks-chef society of top toques serves forth at his destination restaurant in Bloomfield. It’s a Luis Blasini-Sinchi moment and it’s destined to endure.
La Tabatiere
The relaxed friendliness of this bakery in Closter belies the behind-the-scenes precision and concentration needed to produce pastries such as a stellar canelé, exquisite vanilla diamant cookies and a milk cake of mystery.
The Anti-Deprivation Bowl
What to eat when everyone else is not eating some major food grouping in the name of reversing holiday-dining damage? A big bowl of nutritious comforts customized to what’s on hand and what’s striking the mood.
Sweet Talk
When does one of the most common taste descriptives actually do wrong by the foods it purports to explain? Andy self-critiques and consults an authority for answers.
Horseradish Power
It’s the cure for the cold weather common at this time of year and LOTF columnist Kate Munning has the prescription for its many uses.
Cold-weather Comforts: 1-22-24
Sweet potatoes, peaches, The Pepito, plump shrimp wontons and puffy beans and cod are the stars of the eating shows of the two weeks just past. Review here, then plan to consume.
The Layered Look
We dress in layers at this time of year and there’s wisdom, not to mention waves of flavors, in cooking that way, too. A dish of cacio e pepe beans, pesto and roasted onions offers a blueprint for stylish simplicity.
Block Another Punt
The Murphy Administration and the state Legislature ignored valuable counsel and, once again, failed to come up with sorely needed reforms to liquor license laws. Candidates vying for Trenton’s top job in the next gubernatorial election need to make sure this is the last time the supposed hometown team drop-kicks opportunity.
Winter Pop-ups on the Farm
Peak season is in the eye of the beholder and what you’ll behold right now at our four-season farms can bring the cheer of spring’s first daffodils to your kitchen on the grayest of winter days.
Of Reaping and Sowing
What Dorothy Turner grows, her community eats. Right now, the veteran farmer is planning her customers’ next meals from her fields in Howell.