The Tastier Side of Life

Fiddleheads will be arriving soon. However, I have never cooked with them. I'm not sure what to do with them or what they'll taste like. Do you have any suggestions?

This wild early spring vegetable will both arrive and depart soon; the season for fiddleheads is very brief. So if you see some, snap them up! Especially if you don't know if you like them, try them right away. Then you can decide whether to forage or purchase more to preserve by pickling or freezing.

This vegetable is striking looking. A vivid emerald green, it looks just like its namesake. How

I would like to try making homemade pizza with my kids. I'm confident that I can make a decent crust and sauce. My concern is in the baking. I don't own a pizza stone. Do I need one to make pizza, or can I use a pan that I already own, such as a cookie sheet?

Pizzas made commercially are baked directly on the floor of a pizza oven at extremely high temperatures (as high as 800°F.) . Because of this direct, high heat, a crispy crust is guaranteed.

To duplicate this environment as closely as possible in a home oven,

Is there a difference between boneless and bone-in pork chops, besides the bones? Is one type better for a certain type of cooking, or are they interchangeable?

Yes, there is; but there's more to the question. Or rather, that's not the only question. There's more than one kind of pork chop, so that's where you need to start.

A pork chop is simply a cut of pork taken crosswise from somewhere along the entire pork loin, which stretches from the front end of the animal by the shoulder to the end of the backbone by the hip. There are four different

Does it make a difference in what kind of salt is used in a recipe? I received sea salt and pink salt for Christmas, but I don't know how to use them.

Aside from my strong conviction that cheap table salt, iodized or not, is not an ingredient anyone should be cooking with, the sky's the limit when choosing salts. However, there are many kinds of salt that come in varying sizes and shapes which can make a difference as to how they're used. Confusing? I'm sure.

For example, your saying "sea salt" really doesn't tell me much. It could

I was raised in the 1960's - the casserole generation. This means I use a lot of condensed soups for sauces. Where do I begin to learn how to make healthier sauces from scratch?

What you're looking to do, basically, is reverse engineer your casserole recipes to the days when canned soups weren't available. It's not hard at all to make sauces rather than soups for your dishes; it just takes a little more time than opening a can. The results, however, are so worth it. You eliminate the unnecessary ingredients that come with processed foods, and the taste is