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Chef Train

AJ Capella, Summit House

Unabashedly in love with the Garden State’s abundant and diverse ingredients, the newest inductee into TPW’s chef-picks-chef society of top toques isn’t shy about speaking out on behalf of New Jersey’s glorious foods.

Sunday Kitchen

Beans + Quinoa = Beanoa

Pronounced bean-whaa, but no matter how you mangle it, this powerhouse partnership is prime nutritional fuel. That you can deck the combo with a world of custom accents is even more reason to add it to your repertoire

Essay

Thoughtful Thanksgiving

It’s the eve of the nation’s annual eating holiday, when roasting and recipes and running out of room in the kitchen are on the minds of many. For at least a few minutes, however, let gratitude for a bigger picture take hold.

Baking Arts

Past Perfected

Retro goes Grade A in Coots Kitchen, the bakeshop of Kathryn Logie where everything from Good Humor treats to Pop Tarts gets a modern-ingredient makeover.

Vegetable Pot Pie
Sunday Kitchen

Vegetable Pot Pie

It’s fit for a Thanksgiving potluck, adaptable to a variety of vegetables, right as a main course for guests who prefer plant-based foods and also suitable as a side for meat-eaters. It’s a heavenly savory pie.

People

To Spice, with Love

Intimidated by the Indian blends essential to the magically seasoned dishes you covet? Be cowed no more, armed with both bottlings and a companion cookery book by Barkha Cardoz.

Food Find

Smoked Salmon Chowder

South Jersey Smoke House gives Garden Staters a chowder of our own with a new and singular stewy soup. (Or is it a soupy stew?)

Fortnightly 5

Touching All Bases: 11-13-23

A sandwich, sweet potatoes, sashimi, a curry and a new rice for a risotto take the lead in another U.N. of eats from the two weeks just past.

Life on the Farm

Sumac, a Singular Source

When much else is turning brown in mid-fall, count on this crimson berry to blaze a trail to possibilities in the kitchen. LOTF columnist Kate Munning reports from field and brew pot on its vinegary, tart and citrusy soul.

Place

Rices of Our Own

Blue Moon Acres in Pennington is where rices are being grown, though not in the ways they are elsewhere. The result? Distinctive and most distinguished grains, with flavors all their own.

DOWN TO THE LOCAL

Jessie’s of Linwood

Dogs, kids, strollers, iPhones, planners are all welcome companions, accessories and essentials at a bona-fide hub in the historic district of a small city in Atlantic County.

Sunday Kitchen

Brussels Parm

An easy-all-around supper gets an update that turns it into a suitable and more universally likable side dish for the Big Bird on the horizon.

Holidays

Pro Picks

What foods do those in the culinary biz most look forward to eating at holiday time? Those who live their lives immersed in things edible weigh in.

Chef Train

Tom Valenti, Jockey Hollow Bar + Kitchen

Long a resident of Sussex County but more recently head of the kitchen at this mecca in Morristown, the newest inductee into TPW's chef-picks-chef society of top toques made humble foods haute and, in turn, influenced new generations of both chefs and diners.

Sunday Kitchen

Jimmy Nardello Peppers

What do you do if you’re lucky enough to score a bunch of these Italian heirlooms late in the season? Very, very little. At first. Then, let your imagination play on.

Editorial

Jersey Ag at a Juncture

Only seven people in the Garden State’s history have served as Secretary of Agriculture. With the process for picking a new ag leader under way, it’s imperative the eighth overseer of our foodstreams be equipped and committed to addressing in innovative and fully supportive ways the needs of our farmers, food systems and culinary heritage.

Essay

At Long Last, Unity

A diverse group of stakeholders in the issue of liquor license ownership in New Jersey gathered this week and united on a plan to address the subject that has long been fraught with discord. A prominent licensee called the summit “historic,” noting that “this has never happened before.”

Season's Eatings

Cranberry Contest

Native to our Pinelands and popping up in markets right now throughout the Garden State, the ruby berry that is equal parts nutritional and flavor powerhouse may be fundamental to our holiday-season tables, but could and should be a year-round staple. Herewith, YOUR chance to prove its singular mettle.

Sunday Kitchen

Kimchi as Plus-One

A jar of kimchi in your fridge can be your BFF when you’re looking for a one-two punch to get dinner done in a jiff.

Cocktail/bottle photos courtesy of 3 BR
Process

Peaches and Dreams

A heaping helping of heritage went into a just-released brandy that showcases a fruit from a centuries-old farm and the craft of a determined distiller. It’s just the start of what Melick’s Town Farm and 3 BR Distillery can do together.

Special Report

Day Eight: Get Your Culinary Kicks on Route 46

It’s three for the end of the road, which comes in western Warren County: Hot Dog Johnny’s, founded 1944 in White Township; Log Cabin Inn, opened in 1938 in Knowlton Township; and Marshall’s Farm Market, born in 1920, also in Knowlton. One’s a nationally recognized roadside stand, lionized and loved for its hot dogs; another is a destination for bikers and folks looking for a rural respite with honest eats and drinks; and the third is a 103-year-old country food market run by descendants of George Amer Marshall, who opened its doors as the great urban migration was starting in America.

Fortnightly 5

Striking Gold: 10-16-23

Color is the commonality in our rundown of foods that capture the heart. Pretty, they are, but these dishes are about much more than greets the eye.

Sunday Kitchen

Getting Better with Butternut

The sergeant major of the winter squash brigade gets a little help from some friends in a warm salad fit for the season – and the holidays to come. Kiera Mitru guides from market to making the most of a stalwart.

Special Report

Day Seven: Get Your Culinary Kicks on Route 46

Hackettstown without James on Main, elite chef Bill Van Pelt’s love song to the ingredients of the Garden State’s plush Northwest, seems a distant memory. Did it ever not anchor the downtown that Route 46 runs through, its actual Main Street? Seems unfathomable, though true, as the intimate storefront with its energetic, yet elegant plates was born only in 2016.

Special Report

Day Six: Get Your Culinary Kicks on Route 46

The new jewel in the growing Dhaba empire is the recently opened Social Hub by Dhaba in Parsippany, where upscale Indian fare sparkles in a restaurant/bar/lounge setting. In Ledgewood, Cliff’s Homemade Ice Cream has been in the hot-flavor scoops business for almost 50 years, and it remains the coolest game in town.

Special Report

Day Five: Get Your Culinary Kicks on Route 46

Family affairs happen in the food world. Not surprisingly so, since gathering ’round a dining table is inherent in family life everywhere. Small storefronts fueled by a love of cooking one’s birthright dishes don’t just charm, they educate in culture – as the members of the Baran family at Rosa-Ly Pierogi in Fairfield and the Andrade clan at Garibaldi Peru-Mex in Parsippany do so well. Chief Photographer Mike Peters' special pictorial report continues today.

Special Report

Day Four: Get Your Culinary Kicks on Route 46

Hand-pulled noodles draw constant crowds to Shan Shan Noodles in Parsippany, where a post-savories stop at Sweet Shansations, the related bakery in the same strip small, is de rigueur. And delightful.

Special Report

Day Three: Get Your Culinary Kicks on Route 46

If the American flag had been designed in 21st-century New Jersey, instead of stars and stripes the symbols we salute may well have been burgers and pizza. We do honor those cherished eats daily, at Steve’s Burgers in Garfield and at Pizza Town in Elmwood Park.

Special Report

Day Two: Get Your Culinary Kicks on Route 46

Start any day at Roast’d in Fort Lee. Head west several miles, till the planes in and out of Teeterboro are directly overhead, and touch-down for breakfast, lunch, dinner and those hours in-between at Runway Diner in South Hackensack.

Essay

It’s Rabbit, Not Bunny

An extraordinary dish showcases a meat that doesn’t so much have a bad rap as it does an ill-informed one. That’s why rabbit is condemned by those who align with animation over responsible stewardship when it should be revered for being lean, nutrient dense and needing only a small footprint to be happily raised.

Chef Train

Andrea Lekberg, The Artist Baker

The newest inductee into TPW’s chef-picks-chef club of top toques in the Garden State is multitalented in various art forms, an activist with commitment and passion for her community, and has a background as diverse as her culinary crafts. She’s the consummate Renaissance woman.

Sunday Kitchen

Pate, Toujours

When a top-flight livestock farm gives you chicken livers, make a pate for the ages. Like this one. You’ll never pass them by again.

Life on the Farm

Hydro-powered Beverages

Experimentation and collaboration are teaching LOTF columnist Lauren Vitagliano that it takes only a spray of intensified herb to up the flavor ante on a drink of choice – “mock” or not. Here’s to your health!

People

Home, Fertile Home

Homesteading places importance on the life arts, the land, the seasons and mindful stewardship. To an increasing number of practitioners, it also means educating community.

Sunday Kitchen

Beans with Custard

Top of the new season to you! And, speaking of tops, how about a creamy-cheesy blanket for your pot o’ beans?

Essay

My Old Italian Home Restaurant

Be true to your own favorite when it comes to dining out in the genre of the red, white and green. It doesn’t have to be the “best.” It just has to be the one you love.

Sunday Kitchen

Apples Another Way

It’s prime time for a favorite fruit – and high time to take a road perhaps less traveled in its use.

Food Find

Paratha, Cooked to Order

At the Holland Delta Mart, sitting astride its companion gas pumps in the far west of Hunterdon County, South Asian flatbreads are flipped off a hot griddle into the custody of fortunate passers-by. As well as those who know enough to make a special trip.

People

Growing and Gardening

Brittney Portes is digging in to a career in farming at an angle all her own. Paramus-raised and now heading up a community garden at Montclair State University, she aims to share passion and knowledge with those looking to grow with her.

Fortnightly 5

Only a Trio: 09-11-23

It’s not been the best of eating times, these last 14 days. Bad luck? Tired kitchens? End-of-summer slump? Hard to say. But nothing will be elevated as a “favorite” unless it truly is. So for this stretch, we’re talking about a Top 3.

Sunday Kitchen

Everyday Figs

Don’t turn down an offer of this seasonal fruit, but do expand the scope of how you can make best use of them.

Life on the Farm

Beauty of the Bounty

High-summer’s crops are in their glory right now, as TPW’s backyard farmer Alessia Eramo finds herself in constant harvest mode. Catch tips for making the most of what once was a lawn, as well as a recipe straight from Italy, in her latest dispatch.

People

Catch to Kitchen

Amanda Axelsson and Brady Lybarger champion the scallop, that free-living species in the bivalve family capable of swimming like an Olympian and realizing the fantasies of seafood-centric chefs from Japan and China to the Iberian Peninsula to the Jersey Shore.

Food Find

This Soup is ON!

The new winner and the uncontested champ in a category we care supremely about is … the Garden State Tomato Soup.

Sunday Kitchen

New Noodles

Sitting in an unmarked baggie at the checkout counter of a local Asian market were bunched-up noodles, not a shred of commentary, description or clue to their provenance to be found. Irresistible, wouldn’t you say?

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