Sarah Lemon
Journalist and food writer turned cooking instructor who believes that healthy food is within anyone’s reach — and can taste delicious.
Local eggs fill gap in nationwide supply
My enthusiasm for eggs runs strong all year long. So it’s easy to forget that this supermarket staple has a season — unless you make a point to shop the region’s first farmers markets of spring. While March markets’ fresh produce is still scanty — even supplemented with overwintered and stored crops — egg supplies are strong. And demand this year for locally raised eggs is likely to be even...
Broccoli is widely beloved of Americans
It’s a bleak season for seasonal eaters in Southern Oregon — a time of “default-mode” cooking, rather than inspiration from nature. After a solid three months of eating winter squash, interspersed with potatoes and root vegetables, propped up by hardy greens, I’m defaulting to broccoli. And I’m not the only one. Ask any American of any eating persuasion in a majority of states which vegetable is...
Indian kootu cleans the produce bin
After the celebration comes the catharsis — that inevitable literal and figurative purging following the holiday season. After taking down and packing up holiday decorations this week, I deep-cleaned the kitchen, sifted through piles of paperwork on my desk and organized some clutter in the garage. Because we’d spent a week away from home, the refrigerator load was lighter than usual. But there...
Family recipes conjure sweet visions of Christmas past
My grandmother was the queen of Christmas. “Elf” might be a more fitting title, given her diminutive stature. But my grandma didn’t discreetly execute anyone else’s holiday plan. She orchestrated the whole show — with sights, smells and tastes to ensure everyone in our extended family joined the merry-making. Numbering between 13 and 17, our gathering wasn’t too large to blow...
Choose chicories for cold-season salads
Do you switch up your salads according to the season? If apples have swapped places with tomatoes and citrus with cucumber, your salads are halfway there. Now consider the salad greens, themselves. The bulk of your salad bowl deserves a fresh look with each turn of the calendar’s pages. Shoppers who pay close attention in grocers’ produce sections can envision more on the menu than cabbage and...
Fall feast doesn’t sate pumpkin cravings
This year, I’m grateful for family who helps with the Thanksgiving feast. I’d already purchased canned pumpkin puree, though, when my mother-in-law said she wanted to prepare pumpkin chiffon pie. Who am I to argue? A lighter alternative to classic pumpkin is fine by me, particularly when it’s served alongside a slice of my family’s indispensable pecan pie. But what to do with the can of unused...
A wealth of walnuts makes meals richer
Fall in Southern Oregon brought a windfall of walnuts. Conditions this year clearly favored these hardwoods historically planted by the region’s homesteaders. But walk through most neighborhoods, and there’s a good chance you’ll encounter a walnut tree presiding over a yard or sprawling over a fence. Suburban foraging is one of my favorite pastimes. A tree just down the street from my house...
Leave pumpkins on the porch – Celebrate Southern Oregon’s squash season with butternut
Pumpkin may be autumn’s icon, but America’s favorite fall flavor arguably is butternut squash. Those little sugar pumpkins — aka pie pumpkins — certainly are cute in their corpulence. Their taste and texture, however, don’t appeal as much as their aesthetic. So food processors figured out years ago that marketing squash as “pumpkin” fulfilled consumers’ culinary expectations while preserving...
Fresh mint makes cool condiments
The time has come to baby basil. Lest they blacken once nights turned frigid, my garden’s lushest, least leggy basil are ensconced in terra cotta pots indoors. For mint, there’s no such accommodation. A persistent perennial, the herb will wait out winter in its pot by the kitchen door — sheltered on the back patio. Long after the basil has dropped its leaves, mint will impart bright, fresh...
Gardeners, cooks in Southern Oregon treasure ‘red, white and blue’ potatoes
I’m ordinarily not one to dig potatoes — unless I literally get to dig potatoes. Ambivalent to the average supermarket spud, I couldn’t be more passionate about potatoes homegrown in Southern Oregon. Far from the bland filler I associate with long-keeping russets, specialty varieties tickle my fancy with diverse shapes, sizes, colors and textures. Freshly dug from the earth, these tubers taste...