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Gwyn Mellinger

Gwyn Mellinger

Gwyn grew up in Emporia and Salina. She graduated from Mills College, in Oakland, Calif., and has master's degrees from Emporia State and Kansas University. She lives with her husband Mike, stepson Cassady and four dogs in rural Douglas County, where she gardens. When she's not writing about foods and gardening, Gwyn Mellinger is teaching journalism at Baker University. Reach her by email at mellinger@harvey.bakeru.edu.

Volatile weather results in replanting
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
To mention that weather in Kansas alternates between extremes is to state the obvious, but for vegetable gardeners such facts of life are of supreme importance. If the early going is any indication, this may be a particularly volatile gardening season.

Postal workers to deliver food
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
On Saturday, U.S. postal patrons, a group that pretty much accounts for everybody, will have an opportunity to participate in what may be the largest coordinated food drive ever. This is the 13th year for the National Association of Letter Carriers' effort to restock local food banks, and folks are being asked to set canned goods and packaged nonperishable food near their mailboxes to be picked up when the mail is delivered Saturday.

'The Pie' serves as sweet reminder
Wednesday, May 4, 2005
Some people have a signature dish that defines them within the world around them. The dish becomes the reputation that precedes them and then follows them wherever they go. Such it was with Kit Gunn and his chocolate-walnut pie.

Peas should be a staple in the garden
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Considering its popularity on the dinner table, the pea gets relatively little attention from vegetable gardeners in this part of the world. Most gardeners seem perfectly content to leave pea-growing to Green Giant and to reserve garden space for other vegetables that appear to be less troublesome.

Timing tomato crop a gamble for growers
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
For many vegetable gardeners, April is a month of watching and waiting. It is also a time of intense study as we track the weather forecasts and scrutinize the fine print about daily highs and lows. All of this is designed to answer the question of when it's finally safe to plant tomatoes.

Asparagus retains al dente flavor in skillet
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
Spring is, of course, an asparagus lover's favorite season. Locally grown and freshly harvested asparagus is available for about a month beginning in April, and at my house we become a one-vegetable family during this period.

Cole crops grow better from transplants
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
The cool, damp weather we've had in the past week and the mild temperatures now in the forecast are perfect growing conditions for cole crops. This is the category of vegetables that includes broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and kohlrabi. In this climate, these vegetables need to get the majority of their growing done before the end of May.

Onions ideal for early planting
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Among the vegetable crops that can be -- and should be -- planted early in the season are onions. In this climate, the harvest from later plantings tends to be sharper in taste and lacks the sweet edge that makes onions worth some space in the home garden. To achieve optimal flavor, onions should do most of their growing during the cooler weather in spring and should be pulled out of the ground in the early summer.

It's not too early to begin planting vegetables
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Early-season vegetable gardeners don't have to wait until the danger of frost has passed to begin sowing seed. Frost-tolerant greens and such root crops as carrots, beets and turnips can be planted during March with great success, provided gardeners pay attention to a couple of basic rules.

Gardeners' mythology says to plant potatoes on St. Pat's
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
In this part of the country, gardeners' conventional wisdom says to plant potatoes on St. Patrick's Day. I've always been intrigued by this advice, which makes the Irish holiday the appointed date for planting the vegetable we most often associate with the Irish. Because of where it falls on the calendar, potato planting also is the opening salvo of the growing season in many gardens.

Proper planning, fresh ideas useful in veggie garden
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Even if the temperatures weren't warming up, I would know that vegetable gardening season was just around the bend. In the past couple of weeks, I've started receiving e-mails from folks with questions about which seeds to plant and when to plant them.

Vacation discovery: Cuban cuisine
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
After spending just four days in south Florida, I have returned a fan of Cuban cuisine, which must be the last, best-kept secret in North America. The flavors are deep and well-defined without being overwhelming. Garlic, bay leaf, cumin, oregano and a hint of citrus are the trademark ingredients.

The groundhog should go!
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
I've always been a bit perplexed that the media spend so much time tracking the exploits of Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog that purportedly forecasts the weather each February. Obviously, Phil's activities are nothing more than a media event -- something contrived for publicity and sustained by this false newsworthiness. If the media would just leave it alone, I say each Groundhog Day, the whole thing would disappear.

Syrup's ubiquity binds it to cook
Wednesday, February 9, 2005
I've made several recipes recently that call for corn syrup, which is unusual because sometimes I go for a long stretch without using it directly in cooking. Those of us who have a sweet tooth never get very far away from it, though.

Now is the time for chocolate indulgence
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
Being Valentine's month, February is our opportunity for shameless and unrestrained indulgence in chocolate. I realize that for many chocolate lovers, this is business as usual. You will also note that I frame this holiday not as a mere day but as a protracted celebration of chocolate. Our only regret should be that February is the shortest month on the calendar.

Heat, cooking time must be resolved for slab of ribs
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Perhaps it's a sign of longing for warmer weather, but lately I've been cooking things in the oven and under the broiler that I ordinarily cook only on the grill during the other three seasons. One of these most recent indoor cooking efforts involved spare ribs, which I usually cook all day in the smoker.

Deep onion flavor essential to soup
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
I stumbled across half an unsliced loaf of dried-out sourdough in my kitchen the other day, and my first thought was of baked onion soup. When I was in college in California oh-so-many years ago, stale sourdough bread submerged in onion soup became one of my subsistence foods.

Layer cake elicits praise
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Anyone launching a New Year's resolution diet might want to take a reprieve long enough to make and eat the cake I'm about to describe.

Shrimp and grits for the holiday
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
The only thing I like better than stumbling upon an absolutely scrumptious restaurant meal that I'd like to eat again and again is finding the recipe for this meal published in a cookbook.

Fondue part of holiday rituals
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
I'm always intrigued by holiday food traditions, and I find the meals on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to be among the most interesting. That's because the menus aren't etched in stone -- as they are at Thanksgiving, for instance -- and each family has an opportunity to ritualize different foods.

Cookie classics
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
If we are what we eat, then our tastes in Christmas cookies may be the window to our souls. Through the years I have become convinced that the Christmas cookies we choose to bake and eat -- a decision that is as personal and individualistic as they come -- are an expression of who we are.

Confit of duck perfect for holidays
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
For the highly organized, plan-ahead type cook, I have the perfect recipe for an elegant holiday meal. Do this now and you will be able to serve a glamorous dinner, seemingly without effort, for the winter holidays.

Turkey hash is versatile
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Most Thanksgiving dinners are celebrations of excess. Even though we eat way too much, we also have a lot of food left over when we're done. So the task on Friday will be disposing of the leftovers quickly and painlessly.

Magazine covers focused on turkey
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Thanksgiving must be a perplexing time for food modelers. My empathy here is for the paid professionals who set up food displays for the covers of cooking magazines. When November rolls around, there's just one food item eligible for the cover of magazines like Gourmet and Bon Appetit, and that, of course, is a roasted turkey.

Holiday challenge: Sweet potatoes
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
We're heading into the season of holiday dining, a stretch of the calendar when menu planning is elevated to a strategic activity for many cooks. For those who take responsibility for putting food on the table during the holidays, this is no small burden.

Stew puts pumpkin's shell to use
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
As you toss your spent jack-o'-lantern into the trash -- or better yet, onto the compost pile -- be aware that you're discarding something our forebears considered valuable.

Curried squash soup full of flavor
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Last week I began extolling the virtues of winter squash, and it turns out that I wasn't done.

Squash imports with fresh produce
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
As we move into autumn, our access to locally grown produce is beginning to diminish. It won't be long before the vegetable portion of our diet will have to be canned, frozen or picked early and imported from another climate.

Ditch cans, spice up pumpkin
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
When the weather turns chilly in the fall, the warmer spices, such as cinnamon, clove and nutmeg, seem like natural additions to our diet. It's no coincidence that these spices turn up in pumpkin recipes.

Soup's on: Fast or slow it's good
Wednesday, October 6, 2004
When we talk about soup, we need to define our terms. That's because soup can be divided into two general categories, namely the fast-cooking and the slow-cooking, and the differences between them can be substantial. While soup is generally regarded as an easy thing to prepare, the time it spends on the stove has a lot to do with what ultimately gets ladled into the bowl.

Baked apple makes sweet side dish with meal
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
One of my favorite side dishes as a child was a baked apple. I particularly appreciated the fact that my mother served a baked apple with the meal, rather than trying to pawn it off as a dessert. In the childhood scheme of things, a baked apple was far too nutritious a food item to count as a dessert. If dessert was to be part of the meal, I reasoned, a tooth-rotting sweet should appear at the end. It was only fair.

Swiss steak serves as warm-up to fall fare
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Even though the temperatures are still in the 80s, it's not hard to sense autumn just around the corner. While most of us are still grilling and eating warm-weather foods, our appetites are beginning to shift into winter gear. I call it the Curse of the Mammals: When summer begins to morph into fall, our bodies automatically want heavier food as if we still needed to put on another layer of fat to survive the coming winter.

Diets tend to promote eating food individually
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Food traditionally has had the capacity for bringing people together. Eating a meal with others -- or breaking bread, if you prefer -- is a communal experience that unites us. For that brief period of time, we bridge our differences as we sustain our bodies and, some would argue, our souls.

Vineyard flourishing in Jefferson County
Wednesday, September 8, 2004
On Sunday, Don and Maxine Bryant and 18 of their friends picked grapes, drank wine and ate well. A throwback to the days when neighbors pitched in to bring in the crops, the volunteer harvest crew at the Bryants' vineyard near McLouth had filled 50 five-gallon buckets and 10 bushel baskets with grapes by lunchtime.

Saltaholic's 'salty salt' claim leads to Web site
Wednesday, September 1, 2004
My husband and I were eating in a restaurant the other night when he raised the saltshaker and proclaimed, "Now, there's some salty salt." Too often, he insisted, restaurant salt just didn't taste as salty as it should. He wanted me to be alarmed at the prospect of unscrupulous restaurateurs slipping salt substitute past unsuspecting diners. Instead, I stifled a yawn.

Weather creates pleasant surprises
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
I couldn't help but be amused at the forecast for this week, which called for temperatures in the 90s. While such heat in late August would be "seasonable" most years, it seems wildly out of place in this uncharacteristically mild summer. For vegetable gardeners, this has been a season that followed none of the rules.

Julia Child stirred up American cooking
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
The remembrances of Julia Child, who died last week at age 91, have emphasized the calm but direct way in which she revolutionized cooking by taking the mystery out of technique. She also expanded the American vision of flavor and ingredients and raised the bar for our expectations of texture and freshness.

Recipe for dough can be used for other high-carb treats
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Back in the day when bread was the staff of life, the coffee cake was more likely to be a dough-based creation than one with a cake-like texture. Our expectations were pretty basic then, before box mixes and pastry chefs infiltrated the menus of American kitchens and left many cooks feeling inadequate for the task

Easy-to-grow tomatillos have distinct flavor
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
Much of what grows in our vegetable gardens originated near the equator -- tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, for example -- but we have adapted them to our climate and now regard their flavors as our own.

Italian tomatoes terrific in sauces
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
It's tough when your best critic confronts you at the breakfast table. Mine frequently delivers one-liners from behind the newspaper, and he recently let me know what he thought of my prognostication earlier this year, that we were in for a drier than average gardening season.

'Tis the season to enjoy fresh, flavorful veggie dishes
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
The Kansas climate being what it is, there are only about three months of the year when it is possible to eat meals whose nonmeat ingredients consist of nothing but locally grown, full-flavored vegetables. We're in the thick of that season now, and it is wonderful.

Wet weather helps create longer pods
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
The ample rainfall this summer has been kind to area gardens, but no crop has benefited quite like green beans. Well-watered bean plants quickly produce the long, uniformly slender pods pictured in seed catalogs and on the front of seed packets. At my house, we call these 6-inch pods movie star beans.

Garden beginning to bear its fruits
Wednesday, July 7, 2004
One thing Kansas vegetable gardeners figure out pretty quickly is that they can't take a vacation in July. I learned this fact of life one summer in my early gardening years when I planned a trip right in the middle of the summer.

Magazines feature area ranch, K.C. barbecue, side dishes
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
If you're trolling through the July cooking magazines looking for recipes to try on July Fourth, you'll notice that our neck of the woods gets prominent mention in two of them.

Preferred way to eat zucchini: sautéed
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Being a squash lover is a lonely business at my house. No one else really cares for it, and I find myself having to cook it just for myself. This also means that I have been caught more than once having more squash planted in the garden than I could possibly use.

Vegetable tops signal when to dig
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
At this point in the summer, we should have a pretty good idea of what kind of a harvest we're going to get from many of the plants in our vegetable garden. Take tomatoes, for instance. If the vegetation is green and lush and the plants are covered with blossoms and green fruit, we have cause for optimism.

Heat, pests begin to bug area gardens
Wednesday, June 9, 2004
Like most things that occur in time, the vegetable growing season has a beginning, middle and end. In each of these phases the garden is a different place, owing mostly to what's growing there, the temperature and the challenges that beset the gardener.

Cherry dessert ripe for summer
Wednesday, June 2, 2004
Our cherry trees are 10 years old this summer and, in a fitting commemoration, they are heavy with brightly colored, plump fruit, just on the cusp of ripeness. In a few days, I will be up to my ears in fresh cherries.

Gardening work starts to pay off
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
When I began picking snow peas last week, it was a symbolic moment in my annual gardening cycle. One of the main reasons for having a vegetable garden is to be able to eat fresher and better-tasting produce than can be had from the supermarket.

Simple spinach creations
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Greens are among the first garden vegetables to be harvested each spring, signaling the beginning of the fresh-salad season. This also is our best opportunity to enjoy fresh spinach, which is more tender and milder in flavor when it's eaten in season and soon after it's picked.

Celebrate with authentic Mexican
Wednesday, May 5, 2004
In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I'm going to state the obvious: Even though Mexican food is still technically a foreign cuisine, it has become such a central part of the American diet that it no longer counts as an import.

Asparagus worth planting
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
If grocery carts had brakes, mine would have squealed to a stop in the produce department the other day. I looked once and then did a double-take to make sure I had read the sign correctly. The price card next to an ice-filled bin of bunched asparagus did indeed say that the spears were selling for $2.77 a pound.

Tomatoes, corn top to-do list
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Now that the overnight temperatures aren't likely to drop much below 50, we can begin planting the warm-weather vegetables that don't tolerate frost and require higher ground temperatures.

Gardens can form climates
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
I was in Pennsylvania at a conference earlier this month, when I overheard two women at my table debating when to start planting their vegetable gardens. Naturally, I perked right up. "So, what zone are you in here?" I asked.

Digging for advice on garden tools
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
One of my least favorite gardening chores is thinning out the seedlings. It always pains me to uproot a perfectly good plant to make room for the select few.

Gardeners learn from mistakes
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Most of what vegetable gardeners know about vegetable gardening comes from experience. Some of us read books, most of us talk to other gardeners, some of us were fortunate to learn from a parent or grandparent. But when it comes right down to it, most of what we know we learned by our own trial and error.

Wind brings gardening challenges
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
When I walked out my front door Saturday and was blasted by a 20-mph gust, I was reminded of the primary challenge to early-season vegetable gardening in Kansas. In my experience, late frosts are much less of an issue than the constant battering of the wind.

Gardeners begin planning for spring plantings
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
To anyone who has not spent an early spring day tilling up a vegetable garden, what I'm about to say will undoubtedly seem like nonsense. By the same token, those of my ilk, the folks who have dirt under their fingernails in mid-March, will understand.

Irish tradition of cabbage, corned beef comes easier
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
March 17, which is just one week away, is a momentous day for Irishmen and Midwestern vegetable gardeners. Some of us typically commemorate St. Patrick's Day with a dinner of boiled corned beef, cabbage and potatoes -- or at least that is the custom that predates green beer.

As spring nears, gardeners can begin planting seeds
Wednesday, March 3, 2004
As soon as the soil dries out enough to be worked, gardeners can start sowing seeds for the most cold-tolerant of the early-season vegetables. Gardeners who putter in the dirt this early in spring -- or late in winter, depending on your point of view -- tend to be the diehards who are happiest with hoe in hand, even if it means wearing mittens.

It's time to start growing garden vegetables indoors
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
The planting dates for most garden vegetables are at least six weeks away, but gardeners who want to grow their own plants need to be starting them indoors now.

Gardeners should plan for dry spell
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
As inconvenient as the recent snowfall may have been, heavy snow in winter is the best thing that can happen to an early-spring vegetable garden. Most of us in northeast Kansas received 6 to 8 inches of snow earlier this month. Those to the west and south got more, but even our half a foot of snow will go a long way toward compensating for lagging precipitation totals during the past year, particularly because the snow stayed on the ground awhile.

Brownies can be delightful gift
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Florists and restaurant owners undoubtedly love it when Feb. 14 falls on a Saturday, because it means that the people who celebrate Valentine's Day are more likely to splurge on a romantic evening. Let's face it: It's a lot harder to slide by with a greeting card and a peck on the cheek when the holiday falls on a weekend.

Slow-cooked meals offer comfort in winter
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
When it's cold outside, I like cooking things that take time. Perhaps it's because I'm stuck indoors all day anyway. In any case, I don't mind filling the house up with the aroma of a dinner that has been simmering on the stove for several hours.

Boneless chicken cheaper if prepared from whole bird
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
I've noticed recipes that call for chicken rarely offer instructions on how one obtains boneless chicken meat to use as an ingredient. If the truth were known, I suspect that many cooks, particularly those who didn't have a mother who learned to cook during the Depression, buy boneless chicken breasts for such purposes.

Red peppers add appeal, flavor to variety of dishes
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Few things stop my shopping cart dead in its tracks like a sign that says red bell peppers are on sale for 88 cents. Red peppers usually are priced anywhere from $1.50 to $2 apiece, so when they drop below a dollar, I buy several.

Gardening plans sprout from catalogs
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Every winter, just after New Year's Day, I pull out the stack of seed catalogs that began amassing just before Thanksgiving and begin the process of planning my spring garden. This also is when I take stock of what's new in vegetable seeds this year and make sure that my old favorites still will be available.

Enchilada recipe reminder of Paradise
Wednesday, January 7, 2004
Like others, I read with a certain sadness that the Paradise Cafe, a landmark in downtown Lawrence, had closed its kitchen in early December. For several years the Paradise had more than a local appeal and was a destination point for people taking day trips from all over the region. For example, some friends from Emporia journeyed there routinely, he for the chicken-fried chicken and she for the chicken enchilada.

U.S. food regulations could use tightening
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
As we end the year, the news media are keeping us fixated on an otherwise indistinct 6-year-old Holstein who was hauled off to slaughter about three weeks ago. The cow was butchered at a Washington state processing plant, despite being visibly ill at the time of her demise, and now represents the first confirmed U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

Homemade appetizers can impress partygoers
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Shockingly, New Year's Eve is just a week away, and anyone planning to entertain should probably start thinking about party food. I'm sure this is unwelcome advice, given that we have to get through another holiday first. Let's just say that I'm giving you something to ponder while you wash the dishes after Christmas dinner.

Ginger captures flavor of holidays
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Spices offer the most distinctive holiday flavors, and ginger is my personal favorite. The Christmas cookie I liked best growing up was a thin ginger and molasses wafer that my mother made. The aroma of warm ginger, inhaled deeply, has always brought me a sense of comfort and good health.

Chocolate Santas bury past favorites
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Way back in the olden days -- which for my purposes date at least to my mother's childhood in the 1920s -- holiday confections looked a whole lot different than they do now.

Baked goods make great holiday gifts
Wednesday, December 3, 2003
As women have spent less time at home since World War II, family traditions have significantly changed. While it's unquestionably an appropriate tradeoff for expanded opportunities, it has made a real difference in the amount of attention most families are able to devote to the trappings of the winter holidays.

Holiday traditions abound
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Holidays, being annual events, measure time. But more than that, holidays provide a yearly benchmark of all things family, a sort of annual stock-taking of our primary relationships in the present -- and of our relationship to a collective past. These networks form the basis of the gratitude the Thanksgiving holiday is supposed to celebrate.

Sweet potato pie beats taste of pumpkin
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
I don't remember the first time I ate sweet potato pie but I vividly recall the instant in which I decided that sweet potato pie was far superior to pumpkin. In one mouth-watering moment, I resolved to choose sweet potato over pumpkin every chance I got.

High-priced beef makes pork dishes appealing
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Given the ridiculously high price of beef lately, we've been eating quite a bit of The Other White Meat — partly by design and partly by accident.

Diet doesn't cause deprivation
Wednesday, November 5, 2003
I'm probably the last person anyone should listen to about the Atkins Diet, because I've broken as many rules as I've followed.

Pumpkins take plenty of water, patience to grow
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
One of the trickiest vegetables for home gardeners to grow consistently and in large quantity is the pumpkin. You wouldn't know this from looking at the mountain of pumpkins piled in front of your local supermarket, but it's true. Only masochists and martyrs plant pumpkins.

Gardening can help soothe mind, body
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
I was supposed to be grading papers on Sunday, but I didn't have the concentration for it. Something devastating happened to a friend last week, and my sadness had registered as a headache that had entered its third day.

Replacing potatoes in Midwestern diet is no easy task
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Here in the Midwest we're in the heart of meat-and-potatoes country, so anyone who disparages the potato is going to be on shaky ground. Even less popular in Kansas is being a vegetarian or a Democrat, but potato-bashing has third place locked up tight.

Growing garlic is fairly easy
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
One of my goals in writing this column has been to convince people who think they have a brown thumb that they really can grow their own food. I've never tried to put grocery stores out of business but to share my passion for vegetable gardening.

Critters sweet on fruit trees
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
It's probably a good thing my husband and I aren't trying to make a living off our fruit trees. We have yet to have a year when the cherry, peach and apple trees all produced a crop — or a year when some manner of wildlife didn't eat what grew.

Basil sprouts end-of-season surprise
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
After the brutally hot and dry summer we had, I was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of basil plants pop up in my herb bed after the Labor Day weekend rains. I suspect these volunteers grew from seed dropped by the basil I planted last spring.

Paring knife among 'Survivor' equipment
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
I was thinking about rearranging my kitchen the other day and got to pondering the value I place on certain utensils and equipment. All I wanted to do was to make sure the most important stuff was in the handiest drawers and cupboards. But I also started thinking about the tools that I really need and use.

No need to fret over fixing frittata for fulfilling breakfast
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
For people who want breakfast to be filling, the main challenge is how to add variety to a menu that quickly becomes bogged down in eggs and more eggs.

Tomato column ripe for pickin'
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
I can tell when a column strikes a nerve with a broad assortment of readers. People I encounter on Wednesday morning stop me to add their 2 cents. And if the topic of the week really resonates, I'll get e-mails and phone calls.

Don't settle for produce that's less than fresh
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
I was served a meal in a restaurant last week that was topped by an anemic-looking slice of tomato. It wasn't even red, really, and its texture was dry and grainy. Obviously, this was a tomato that had been picked weeks before its prime, and it undoubtedly came from afar through a major produce wholesaler.
While this tomato may not have been inedible in any literal sense, no one would want to eat it. I quietly moved it to the side of my plate and ate the rest of my meal. I'm used to bad tomatoes in restaurants, although this one would have won a prize.

Students forget nutritional lessons
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
I've spent a fair amount of time around college students, so I've come to regard myself as something of an expert on the species.

It's time to think about tillage
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
With the main growing season on the wane, it's time to start thinking about putting the vegetable garden to bed for the winter. The idle period between summer and spring also can be immensely important to the long-term viability of a vegetable garden.

Fingerling potatoes possess distinct flavor
Wednesday, August 6, 2003
A friend of mine recently got excited about fingerling potatoes. The potatoes he had tasted were prepared simply -- coated in olive oil, seasoned with garlic and Italian herbs, and baked -- and to hear him describe the experience, the potato had been reborn.

Atkins diet working ... so far
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
After listening to the testimonials over the years, I finally took the plunge and started the Atkins diet. There's something just a bit cultish about Atkins dieters, especially when a bunch of them get together and talk about their carbohydrate intake. For a long time I had the same attitude about them that I have about hockey fans: I didn't understand their madness and didn't want to.

Gardeners long for rain during forecast
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
People who complain that the news is too negative often end up blaming the messenger. If we followed the strange logic in this, vegetable gardeners would be carping this month about the local meteorologists who bring us bad news nightly and whoever prepares those depressing five-day outlooks in the newspaper.

Recollection of cafe creates desire to reproduce its sauce
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Our memories of taste are usually colored by emotion and the passage of time. Take, for instance, a recollection of grandma's apple pie. Pleasant memories of the pie are likely helped along by warm feelings for our grandmother.

Chocolate, bing cherries make great dessert
Wednesday, July 9, 2003
Surely you've noticed the bags of ripe bing cherries in the supermarkets lately. Our own cherry trees were clobbered by a late frost and did not bear much fruit this year, so I've been getting my annual cherry fix from grocers and generous friends whose crop was spared.

Gardeners n Northwest face different obstacles
Wednesday, July 2, 2003
Imagine a single rosemary plant so big and lush that you can't wrap two sets of arms around it. I saw this imposing shrub a few weeks ago in a garden on San Juan Island north of Seattle. As it happened, the plant's owner, who referred to it as "the rosemary bush from hell," had even pruned it back to keep it from overtaking the rest of her garden.

Tomatoes top produce in Fowler's garden
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
I had my first visual proof of Allen Fowler's gardening prowess a couple of years ago, when he sent me a good-natured e-mail to tell me I was wrong. At issue was my claim that the length of the growing season in the northern United States makes it difficult to produce a significant crop of sweet potatoes before frost arrives in October. Allen, a 70-something retiree with a digital camera, spread his massive sweet potato harvest out on a long table and e-mailed me a photo.

Couple protect garden from pests
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Twenty-five years ago, Pat and Betty Gates built themselves a house on 15 acres, about three miles north of Baldwin, and began learning a thing or two about growing vegetables in the woods.

Featured gardeners took to passion as children
Wednesday, June 4, 2003
So far this spring I've described my visits with three northeast Kansas vegetable gardeners, and I have more gardeners on tap in coming weeks. But before we venture on, I want to take time out to reflect on a pattern that emerged in these first three conversations.

Garden features volunteer vegetables
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
John Keller's vegetable garden is a testament to the benefits of tending the same plot of ground, year in and year out. Not only is the soil rich and easy to work, but Keller's garden offers up little bonuses that provide a sense of continuity from one growing season to the next.

Gardener believes in magic of manure
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Strolling between the rows in Paul Heitzman's garden is like walking across a plush, deep-pile carpet. While other gardeners might single out this crop or that as their greatest source of pride, Heitzman points to the soil.

Spinach-eating Popeye served up life lessons
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
It's spinach-picking season, and it occurred to me that for many Americans of my vintage, the most lasting childhood association with spinach may have nothing to do with the dinner table. I cannot recall a single instance of eating spinach as a child, although I know I did. And there's a reason for this lapse. In my childhood memories, spinach appears only in animation.

Using mulch, weeding helps conserve much-needed water
Wednesday, May 7, 2003
Vegetable gardeners are preoccupied with precipitation, and for good reason. Not only do plants need moist soil to grow and bear fruit, but garden produce also contains a lot of water.

Gardeners relish time in spring
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
This may be my favorite time of the year to work in a vegetable garden. The growing season is spread out before us, and it's too soon to tell whether this will be a good year or one that taxes a gardener's wits.

Seiwald's garden: A piece of paradise
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
You'll recall that it rained Friday night and much of Saturday morning, but just as the sun broke through, I found myself standing in Rick Seiwald's spacious yard northeast of Perry and south of Oskaloosa.

Cold snap damages asparagus
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Last week's freezing overnight temperatures were a sorrowful development for many of us who planned to be picking asparagus instead of turning our furnaces back on. In the interests of perspective, though, I have to concede that an early-April freeze is much more inconvenient for the asparagus than it ever will be for me.

His and her gardens provide compromise
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
I've often envied people who can garden with the person they live with. In my household, we've had my garden and my husband's garden since shortly after I threw myself into vegetable gardening with obsessive-compulsive abandon.

Gardeners should avoid outdoor temptations
Wednesday, April 2, 2003
This may be the most frustrating time of the year for vegetable gardeners. When temperatures spike into the 70s and the sun begins to feel warm on your face, it seems like time to be working in the garden.

Farmers pool produce to meet needs of growing customer base
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
For the past 10 years, a collective of diehard vegetable gardeners has been pooling their harvests to provide paid subscribers with a weekly bag of organically grown produce.

Potatoes, onions thrive in cooler temperatures
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Temperatures spiked into the 70s during the weekend, just in time for the unofficial start of the vegetable gardening season.

Encyclopedia's 11th edition puts spin on Irish spud
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Some 20 years ago I was sitting in a research seminar on English literature when the faculty member in charge began sermonizing on the virtues of the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Surgery creates desire to garden through others
Wednesday, March 5, 2003
When I agreed about seven years ago to begin writing this weekly column, I negotiated a compromise. I would write about food as long as I also could write about vegetable gardening, which was my real passion. Hence, the column was titled Kitchen and Garden.

Surgery rekindles rib recipe
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Lately I've been forced to give more thought to ribs than I might otherwise. That's because I recently learned I must have one removed. The 10th one on the left side, in case you're curious.

Ramen rules when bachin' it
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Several weeks ago I was in the newsroom of The Bonner Springs Chieftain, one of the newspapers that carries this column, to visit with the editor. Before I left, one of the reporters -- a young man in his 20s, who had been sizing me up in that aloof but incisive way that brash young reporters have of sizing people up -- offered me some editorial advice.

Vegetable variety picks for area gardeners
Wednesday, February 5, 2003
As we continue our pass through the vegetable alphabet, you'll notice that I'm hitting only on the -- pardon the pun -- garden-variety vegetables. You didn't see celeraic and chard last week, and you won't see kale and kohlrabi this week.

Variety picks for garden vegetables
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
This week I'll begin offering some suggestions for vegetable varieties to plant in this climate. Most of my recommendations are not the least bit exotic, and there's a reason for this.

A guide on when to plant vegetables
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
People who have neither an active nor a passive interest in growing vegetables should probably find another article in the paper to read. As promised, this third installment on preseason gardening will address the planting schedule.

Map key to starting indoors
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Last week I talked about the equipment necessary for starting vegetable seeds indoors, and I want to continue in this vein.

Gardeners don't need to invest a lot to grow starts
Wednesday, January 8, 2003
I've been spending a fair amount of time leafing through the seed catalogs that began showing up in the mailbox a few days before Thanksgiving.

Truffle tart good way to start year
Wednesday, January 1, 2003
Back in late November, I was thanking a handful of people who had expended a great deal of effort on my behalf, when I heard my own voice say something like, "For this, I will bake each of you a dessert during the holidays. Anyone not like chocolate?"

Family finds compromise to traditional celebration
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
This may have been the first Christmas holiday in my adulthood when I have not baked a single thing or prepared any part of the traditional holiday meal.

Christmas celebration requires plan
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
For those who take responsibility for orchestrating their family holiday celebrations, the 24-hour period that begins with dinnertime on Christmas Eve can be one of the most stressful times of the year unless the cook has done ample planning and cooking ahead of time. If the Olympics had a multitasking event, cooking for the holidays would be it.
The three meals typically associated with Christian celebrations of the holiday -- the Christmas Eve supper, Christmas morning breakfast and Christmas dinner -- are no time to be cooking from scratch. For the sake of everyone's sanity, the menu should be planned well in advance, and as many dishes as possible should be ready to pop into the oven or to go straight to the table.

Baker University shares party favorites
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
In one of my other lives, I teach at Baker University, a place that takes hospitality and entertaining rather seriously. At no time of year is this more evident than during the holidays, when the university is host to a number of functions and encounters with party food are darned near impossible to avoid.

Casserole provides comfort in winter
Wednesday, December 4, 2002
If good sense prevailed, the stretches in between holiday feasts would be times of light eating. Unfortunately, many of us get on a roll and eating hearty seems the thing to do. Besides, the weather is just chilly enough to make comfort food seem inviting, even logical.

Thanksgiving can put stress on today’s families
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Once upon a time, when the Cleavers were the model American family, father knew best, and the strangest thing on television was Maynard G. Krebs, the typical Thanksgiving holiday looked a whole lot different than it does now.

Cranberries create memories of childhood during holidays
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
Cranberries are one of those foods that make an appearance on our tables this time of year and hang around for about six weeks before retreating into the shadows.

Kitchen & Garden: How to add more appeal to traditional side dish
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
All over America people who will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner are watching the grocery ads for frozen turkeys and all those other grocery items we lump together in a category unceremoniously labeled "all the fixin's."

Kitchen & Garden: Institutional dining tests social skills
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
For quite some time I've been intrigued by the cultural phenomenon of institutional food service and what it says about us socially. What I'm talking about here are meals for the masses that are usually served in a food line.

Kitchen & Garden: Persimmons fruitful in fall
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
While October frosts signal the official end of the gardening season, they also usher in persimmon season, an event that generally goes unnoticed by all but a few hearty foragers and backyard persimmon enthusiasts.

Carving pumpkins can be scary tradition
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
I was walking into the supermarket the other day when a dad and a couple of kids passed me, wheeling a grocery cart of jack-o'-lanterns out to their car. The kids were ecstatic, while their father looked like he was being led off to his own execution.

Readers share success stories
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
The reader mailbag has been filling up, largely as a result of last week's column on sweet potatoes and my diatribe the previous week about the ineffective compost maker I bought through the mail. Before I share that correspondence, however, let me put out a call for more.

Fall brings craving for sweet potatoes
Wednesday, October 9, 2002
We've had just enough cool weather in recent weeks to tease my appetite into autumn mode. When the thermometer registers in the 50s at night, I can feel myself beginning to crave the slightly denser foods we generally eat in fall and winter.

Magazine's ComposTumbler waste of time, energy, money
Wednesday, October 2, 2002
Every week lately, when I've emerged from the den after writing my column, I've been met with a cold, hard stare and the question, "Did you do it yet? Did you finally come clean?"

Toppings add flavor, calories to spuds
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
Potatoes often get a bad rap for being fattening. When people go on diets, potatoes are one of the first things to go, as if potatoes are some sort of guilty pleasure that will make or break a weight-loss plan.

Herb growers should be mindful of weather
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
It's hard for gardeners to think too seriously about winter when the temperatures have been in the 90s, but the average date of the first killing frost is a mere five weeks away.

Pachamama's recipe featured in Bon Apetit magazine
Wednesday, September 4, 2002
For several years I have followed the monthly R.S.V.P. feature in Bon Apetit magazine, in which readers ask the magazine's editors to publish the recipe for some tasty dish that appears on a restaurant menu somewhere. It's free advertising for the restaurant, because the reader wouldn't be asking for the recipe if the meal hadn't made an impression.
Surprisingly, many of the dishes that left customers hankering for the recipe are fairly basic and easy to prepare at home. I suspect, however, that this fact doesn't keep patrons from returning to the restaurant to have the chef do the cooking for them.

Gardeners dealt difficult season
Wednesday, August 28, 2002
By the end of August, a vegetable garden is an unsightly thing. I suspect this is why the restrictive covenants in many high-class subdivisions prohibit people from having vegetable gardens.

Banana's appeal depends on ripening stage
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
As a topic of discussion at my house, bananas are as volatile as religion and politics are in other quarters — and it's not because bananas give off more ethylene gas as they ripen than do other fruit.

Historic jam recipe needs little effort
Wednesday, August 7, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

I spent some time over the weekend hunkered down with a stack of old cookbooks, tracking down a recipe for a reader. As it happens, I struck pay dirt, and I also kicked up quite a bit of dust in the process.

'Hoppers make meal out of garden
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
Lack of rainfall has been the vegetable gardener's main challenge this summer, followed closely by insects. Whether it's true or not, drought seems to invigorate certain kinds of bugs — particularly the grasshopper, who appears to develop more spring in its jump the hotter and drier it gets.

Can, do!
Wednesday, July 24, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

Every so often I have one of those humbling experiences that feels sort of like hitting my head on a low ceiling. I once lived in an old house whose dimly lit basement was five feet deep at the bottom of the stairs.

Readers make inquiries, offer suggestions
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

One of the great pleasures associated with writing this column is the reader response it generates. Every once in awhile, someone writes me an actual letter, but more often my readers e-mail, telephone or stop me on the street.

Canning's not worth the effort, cost
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

July is when gardeners really see the fruits of their labor. We may harvest such cool weather veggies as potatoes, beets, peas and cole crops earlier in the summer, along with the front end of our cucumber and zucchini, but the bulk of our summer crops will be picked this month.

Readers offer suggestions about controlling deer
Wednesday, July 3, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

I've been hearing plenty of complaints about the lack of rain from other gardeners, and some of them have even been a bit testy about it. Of particular concern to me is their unspoken suggestion that I should be able to offer a solution.

Suckers, beetles pester tomatoes
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

By now tomato plants should be showing green fruit and plenty of blossoms, which will keep most varieties of tomatoes coming through the summer. The most prolific vines, the indeterminates, will produce tomatoes as long as the plants remain healthy — at least in theory.

Oh, deer
Wednesday, June 19, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

Over the past several summers I have used this space to complain about the challenges of growing vegetables, fruit trees or even certain kinds of flowers in a rural area inhabited by deer.

Weather often plays havoc with gardens
Wednesday, June 12, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

Storm clouds and a brief downpour chased me out of my vegetable garden Sunday afternoon and set me to thinking about the challenges of gardening in a climate that is given to fits of rage.

Prize-winning chili maker is mum on recipe
Wednesday, May 29, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

For some time, my friend Walt Bailey has been keeping me posted on the competitive chili-making adventures of his son, Scott, who has qualified for a return trip to the granddaddy of chili cook-offs at Terlingua, Tex., in November.

Herbs are quick to grow, easy to tend
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

Even though wet and cool weather has put the vegetable-growing season behind schedule, it has accelerated activity in established herb gardens. When May rains come close together and keep us from working in the vegetable garden as we would like, herb beds grow bushy and are happy to absorb our otherwise idle attention.

Kitchen & Garden: Wet soil gives gardener a sinking feeling
Wednesday, May 15, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

Friday afternoon I wandered out to the garden and peered over the fence. The ground had begun drying out, just enough so the peaks in the tilled soil had turned the color of cardboard.

Bean there, done that
Wednesday, May 8, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

For once in my gardening life, I managed not to buy too much bean seed. I will end up with five 25-foot double rows of bush beans and maybe three stands of lima pole beans. This is about as conservative as I get.

Spring rains a welcome reprieve for gardeners
Wednesday, April 24, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

With the creeks swollen from the nearly 2 inches of rain that fell on northeast Kansas late last week, it's hard to imagine that we are still behind the average precipitation total for this time of year.

Be sure cole crops have adequate cover from spring winds
Wednesday, April 10, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

With the threat of a hard freeze now comfortably behind us, gardeners who want to plant early vegetables can begin setting out transplants for cole crops. Many area greenhouses stock ample varieties of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts to save us the hassle of having to start seedlings indoors.

Flames spark asparagus season's start
Wednesday, April 3, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

Sunday afternoon turned out to be the occasion for an annual ritual at our house, namely the burning of the asparagus field. This is an acre or so of land into which we planted several thousand asparagus crowns eight years ago.

Early-season gardeners should get set to plant onion and potato crops
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

Last week we talked about root crops as the best candidates for early-season gardening in this climate. Because the early growth occurs underground, wind and cold snaps, the two main weather-related threats this time of year, are not a concern.

Vegetable gardeners can sow the seeds of early spring
Wednesday, March 6, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

The weather in recent days should be a timely reminder of the challenges of early-season gardening in this part of the world. Although the forecast calls for temperatures in the 60s this week, let's not forget that we were scraping ice off our windshields Saturday.

A heritage hunt: Welsh recipes rare commodity
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

Every year when I see March 1, the Feast of St. David, looming on the calendar, the Gwyneth in my blood gets the best of me and I momentarily remember that I am Welsh. More accurately, one-quarter of my ancestry traces to Wales, with the balance being the assimilated mishmash that is typical of people whose forebears emigrated from Western Europe and Britain.

For gardeners, even ice is nice
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

The slush and ice storm that recently heaped inconvenience upon northeast Kansas was not all bad. For people who were shut out of work and school or went without power for several days, this statement will be hard to swallow, but for people who grow stuff it will make perfect sense.

Lasagna exhibits an artistic touch
Wednesday, February 6, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

My friend Jack Collins knows how to throw a dinner party. I always end up feeling stuffed but entertained, the result of eating good food and enjoying an evening of witty, lighthearted company. And I always leave with a sense that I've just participated in something meaningful.

Cake mixes can't scratch the surface of homemade flavor
Wednesday, January 30, 2002

Catalog promises often go to seed
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

Last week, as I was making some general observations about the usefulness and pitfalls of seed catalogs, I touched a bit on the marketing strategies that catalog companies employ to get us to buy our seeds from them. I barely scratched the surface.

Catalogs plant seeds of hope for gardeners
Wednesday, January 16, 2002
By Gwyn Mellinger

Now that we gardeners have our seed catalogs piled before us, a word about how to use them efficiently and economically is in order. As someone who has gone off the deep end more than once and ordered enough vegetable seeds to plant a quarter section, I speak from the wisdom that comes from doing something absurd, then doing it a few more times, and finally realizing that it was, well, absurd. I now know better.

Winter pause gives gardener chance to dream
Wednesday, January 9, 2002
When I awoke the other morning my husband cheerfully announced that the weather forecast for Tuesday called for a high temperature near 60 degrees. My first thought was that this might be a good opportunity to run the tiller through my vegetable garden.

Mousse made for a mature New Year's Eve gathering
Wednesday, December 26, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

As tradition would have it, New Year's Eve is one of the most festive occasions we Americans celebrate, although as I become more and more settled into middle age I notice that Dec. 31 doesn't carry the same sense of urgency that it once did.

New 'Prairie' cookbook rises to the challenge
Wednesday, December 19, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Over the past 30 years cookbook marketers have devoted considerable energy to chasing fads and trends, and I'm not convinced that the cooking public has been enlightened by all this attention.
Publishers began cashing in on the obvious gold mine that presented itself with the yuppie rediscovery of cooking and in the intervening years have produced round after round of specialty cookbooks designed to make a quick buck off the latest cooking craze. All too quickly the gimmick loses its allure and these books die an inauspicious death on a chain bookstore's remainder table.

Holiday guests shouldn't have a beef with hearty, flavorful dish
Wednesday, December 12, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Now that winter is here in earnest our tastes have shifted toward hearty, heavier meals with that stick-to-the-ribs quality. The following recipe for Beef Bourguignon satisfies that need.

Fruitcakes bring science to life
Wednesday, December 5, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Hidden in kitchens here and there across America are fermenting fruitcakes, those traditional holiday concoctions of dried fruit, rum, sugar and a token amount of flour. Right about now, fruitcakes made in mid-November — or earlier — should be kicking into gear, setting off one low-speed chemical reaction after another.

Soups earn points for presentation
Wednesday, November 28, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

I've always admired cooks who could combine good-tasting food with an attractive presentation. Pulling this off requires not just skill in the kitchen, but also a certain creativity and perhaps even a slight sense of drama.

Gravy gives busy cooks a head start
Wednesday, November 14, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Preparing a Thanksgiving meal is an exercise in planning and juggling. Cooks who are superorganized are more likely to be able to pull off such a feast amid the distractions of the holiday.

Turkey takes a spicy turn
Wednesday, November 7, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Thanksgiving dinner is so steeped in tradition that we generally don't even think of tampering with any of the details. Most of us make the same stuffing we've always made, and perhaps the same that our mothers and grandmothers made as well.

Tuber offers a naturally sweet harvest
Wednesday, October 31, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

It's no accident that sweet potatoes are associated with the autumn menu and the Thanksgiving season. That's because sweet potatoes are harvested in late summer and early fall; even though they will keep for several months, sweet potatoes are freshest right now.

Hunt for pie pumpkins may yield fodder for flavorful lasagne
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

The majority of pumpkins produced in the United States — some sources say it's as high as 99 percent — wind up as front-porch ornamentation rather than food. When we carve jack-o'-lanterns, most of us throw away the pulp. If we ever cook with pumpkin, we open a can of solid-pack.

Clay roaster's flavorful tenderizing makes it tough to give up
Wednesday, October 17, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

I bought a Schlemmertopf clay roaster this fall and, if I'm not mistaken, this is the fourth one I've owned. I tend to buy one about every seven years, use it until it cracks and swear I'll never buy another one. Eventually, my irritation abates and I buy another one.

Readers raise garlic, beetle questions
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Following the column that ran two weeks ago, several people have asked me questions about growing garlic.
It's not too late to plant your 2002 crop, but be sure that any garlic you put in the ground has not been treated with a growth retardant. If you use cloves from a supermarket, buy garlic that is certified organic.

Don't fall for spring garlic ruse
Wednesday, September 26, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

I'm here to remind you that the time to plant next year's crop of garlic is now. Although some less-than-forthright greenhouses and seed catalogs sell grower's garlic for spring planting, don't be tricked.

Don't wait till spring to prepare garden
Wednesday, September 5, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

At the end of the gardening season, when the vegetable plants stop producing and the foliage begins to die, it's time to tidy up for winter. You can, of course, simply walk away and leave your vegetable garden until spring. I'd be lying if I claimed I had never done that. However, if you can spare a couple of hours now, you will save yourself even more work in the spring, when the ground will be harder to till and you may even have to burn off the dead stuff that's still standing.

Savor the flavor of summer's end
Wednesday, August 29, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

We think of Labor Day weekend as the official end of summer, our last warm-weather holiday and, for some of us, the point of no return for the school year. Whether it marks a last trip to the lake this year or is simply a three-day weekend to loll around the house, Labor Day also is a natural occasion for cooking outdoors.

Kitchen & Garden: Flavorful feta finds its place
Wednesday, August 22, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

I bought about 4 ounces of feta cheese the other day, intending to use it in a large bean salad for a particular occasion. My plans changed and that salad didn't get made, but I still had this large quantity of feta cheese to use up.

Summer's heat postpones okra harvest, blister beetle debut
Wednesday, August 15, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

At long last, I have achieved okra. About two weeks ago, when I should have been wrapping up my okra picking, my plants finally began to set pods. The two obstacles to my okra harvest were deer, which repeatedly nibbled the leaves of my plants, and heat.

Queries abound with annual garden bounty
Wednesday, August 1, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Readers have been tossing a lot of questions my way this summer, and the most recent batch tells me that a number of area gardens have produced a bumper harvest of at least one vegetable. The issue now is to preserve the bounty for later consumption. Maureen and Bill Osborne e-mailed about their Spanish onions, which they'd like to dry and store for future use.

Pesto-loving brother finds heaven in basil patch
Wednesday, July 25, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

My brother came by the other day to scavenge my basil to make pesto. You know he means business when he climbs out of the car with his pruning shears and a trash bag. This thing he has for pesto is really quite impressive. His single-mindedness on the issue is analogous to the way some people relate to chocolate, except that I have trouble envisioning greeting cards and refrigerator magnets that extol pesto as the cure for every ail.

Garden's new eggplant variety strikes it rich
Wednesday, July 11, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

One of the intrigues of gardening is that no two years are alike. Even if we planted the same vegetables on the same dates, differences in weather and other factors outside our control would give us different results.

Corn needs care at tassel time
Wednesday, July 4, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Sweet corn in local gardens has begun to tassel, which means that actual ears of corn are about a month away. Tasseling is one of those significant points in the garden cycle that lets you know that nature is right on course. Tasseling also is a signal for gardeners to do things just a bit differently in caring for their crop from here on out.

Vigilance helps to quash squash destruction
Wednesday, June 20, 2001
One of the rituals that I recently incorporated into my daily gardening routine is to check my squash plants for the first signs of trouble. This particular brand of trouble either travels on six legs or inches its way into my life.

Don't let plants develop a thirst
Wednesday, June 13, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

I was reminded, following the first big rain in our recent series of storms, of the importance of watering fruit and vegetables evenly throughout their growing period. That surge of precipitation hit just after small berries appeared on one of our cherry trees and produced a growth spurt powerful enough to split the skins on all the fruit on that tree.

Late-summer crops extend garden season
Wednesday, June 6, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

No sooner do I get the summer garden in each year than the mail brings the winter catalog from Territorial Seed Co. While it may seem like a stretch to begin thinking about another round of planting so soon, this may be the answer for the painful withdrawal that afflicts die-hard vegetable gardeners at the end of every summer.

Aches mark start of garden season
Wednesday, May 16, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

I've been thinking lately about the physical part of vegetable gardening, as I tenderly nurse my sunburned neck. I've known people who garden in those long-billed ball caps with the neck flap on the back, and even a gardener who tied a dish towel on his head, in a vague takeoff on the Yasser Arafat look.

Let herb garden work for you
Wednesday, May 9, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

One of the aspects of spring planting that I find most enjoyable is tweaking my herb garden. I never have to start from scratch because my herb beds contain a mix of perennials and annuals, and many of them are enthusiastic reseeders.

Timing eases bean workload
Wednesday, May 2, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Now that the ground has warmed and the threat of frost has disappeared, vegetable gardeners can begin planting their beans, which are notorious for not germinating in either too-cool or too-hot conditions.

Okra, corn must wait for warmth
Wednesday, April 25, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Gardeners who plan to grow direct-seeded vegetables such as sweet corn, okra and beans should have those crops in the ground by mid-May. All three are very sensitive to frost and will not germinate in cool soil or when the air temperature spends much time below 60 degrees, so early May generally is your first opportunity to plant these seeds with confidence.

Vegetable gardeners know what's at stake
Wednesday, April 18, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

How individual vegetable gardeners lay out their growing space usually is a mix of tradition, idiosyncrasy and practicality. I liken it to organizing kitchen cupboards. The parts of my method that weren't borrowed from my mother evolved from personal preference and convenience.

Vegetable gardeners weather unpredictable spring
Wednesday, April 11, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Our wet spring has given area vegetable gardeners fits. Plenty of people who usually put in snow peas, cole crops and greens during March saw those plans wash away as one series of spring showers followed another.

Seafood and potatoes — now that's Italian
Wednesday, March 28, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

When I lived in the Bay Area some 20-plus years ago, after having been raised in Kansas, I was exposed for the first time in my life to real Italian cooking. Just as a fast-food taco bears only a superficial relationship to what people really eat south of the border, Chef Boyardee — the only Italian cook most Midwesterners knew — had been a poor ambassador for his native cuisine.

Lentils lend themselves to spring's lighter dining style
Wednesday, March 21, 2001
As we're poised here at the start of spring, I find that my tastes in food are changing. In the winter months I eschew salads and "light" foods for dishes that emphasize meat and use root vegetables. When the temperature drops and the days grow short, we tend to eat like we're storing fat.

Double-agent plants lure bees, deter pests — and add to garden's bounty
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

In our continuing saga on companion planting, we now turn to the deployment of flowers and blooming herbs to attract the beneficial insects that (we hope) will prey upon pests and improve productivity in the vegetable garden, and to the strategic use of aromatics to ward off pests.

Legumes an ideal companion in most gardens
Wednesday, March 7, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Former Lawrence City Commissioner Bob Moody, who has more time these days to putter in the vegetable garden he plants in that rich soil north of the Kansas River, called recently to request "the definitive article on companion planting."

Hamburger doesn't make it into this Hungarian dish
Wednesday, February 21, 2001
Some friends who traveled to Hungary brought me a bag of ground paprika. The Eastern European version of the spice is a bit perkier, although I wouldn't characterize the flavor as hot.

Cookbook contains recipes from historic black culture
Wednesday, February 14, 2001
Just in time for the celebration of Black History Month comes the re-release of "The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro," which was first published in 1958 by the National Council of Negro Women.

Chocolate tart sure to win Valentine's heart
Wednesday, February 7, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Hey, Valentines and Valentine wannabes. You've got one week to figure out how to make an impression, and I'm here to help.
I'm somewhat obligated to endorse the adage that the way to that certain someone's heart is through his or her stomach, and my own personal experience shows that chocolate is a pretty fool-safe means to that end

Seed catalogs can help plan garden
Wednesday, January 31, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Once you have a garden plan laid out on paper and know how much of each variety you want to plant, the next step is to decide which vegetables you'll direct seed and which you will grow from transplants.

Winter's a great time to design your garden
Wednesday, January 24, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

Now that the snow has melted and the mailbox has filled up with seed catalogs, it's hard not to start thinking about putting in a spring vegetable garden. Although the gardening season is still a couple of months away, the time to start planning is now, and catalogs can be a useful tool in this process.

Hodge-podge ends up in pie
Wednesday, January 17, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

A couple of weeks ago I found myself in something of a menu vacuum. That's what happens when I have enough food on hand that I don't feel like it's time to go to the store, but what I do find in the refrigerator and pantry cupboard are mismatched items that I had never intended to put together into one dish.

Anasazi Bean's dense flavor puts old navy's to shame
Wednesday, January 10, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

I was standing over the stove one recent Saturday afternoon, stirring a simmering pot of Anasazi Beans, and wondering how long it had been since I converted. A search through my column archives shows that it was three years ago this month that I adopted the Anasazi as my multipurpose dried bean of choice.

Dietary excess snags many Americans
Wednesday, January 3, 2001
By Gwyn Mellinger

In adulthood I have noticed that the sources of my holiday wonderment have changed. Where the mysteries of Santa and the sight of twinkling lights up and down the block did the trick for me in childhood, I now am awestruck by more mundane aspects of the holiday.

Southern dish warms up new year
Wednesday, December 27, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger

When it comes to celebrating the new year, Southerners are the experts. Theirs is the only regional North American cuisine I know of that actually includes dishes for the change in calendar, the most noted of which is the rice and black-eyed pea dish called Hoppin' John.

Log on
Wednesday, December 13, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger

The yule log is the most widely recognized Christmas dinner dessert to come out of the European tradition, but most people regard it as being too complicated to make at home. For that reason, most people who serve a yule log buy it at a bakery and may pay $50 or more for a 10-inch cake.

Garbanzo beans create soup's base
Wednesday, November 29, 2000
With one holiday down and another to go, most of us will have done more than our share of time in the kitchen by year's end. Holiday shopping and decorating will occupy us, as well, leaving us less time to prepare meals. Most of us will be doing plenty of eating on the run.

Untraditional burritos are pumped up with traditional fall flavors
Wednesday, October 18, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger

'Tis the season to extol the virtues of the pumpkin — and this week and next I'll be doing just that. We tend to see the pumpkin's value in just two ways: as carving material for jack-o'-lanterns and as pie filling. I have seen estimates that 99 percent of all pumpkins are sold for decoration, which suggests that most of the flesh produced by pumpkins is scooped out and pitched. Many of our ancestors would be shocked.

Rustic persimmons blend a bit of the past into timely fall food
Wednesday, October 11, 2000
By Gwyn Melllinger

Within the next couple of weeks, now that we've started to get hard frosts, wild persimmons will be available for the gathering throughout the eastern Kansas countryside.

Acorn squash makes transition to fall dining
Wednesday, October 4, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger

One of the sure signs that fall is here is the appearance in supermarkets of winter squash, which gardeners in this region generally pick in September. One of the most popular of the winter squashes, and among the easiest to prepare, is acorn squash.

Cheese crust crowns tempting golden quiche
Wednesday, September 27, 2000
At our house on weekends, we tend to eat just two meals a day. Breakfast is late and probably is more appropriately a brunch, since we don't eat again until evening. As part of this routine, we often slide into a rut and seem to eat the same egg-based meals week in and week out.

Good things come in small hard packages
Wednesday, September 20, 2000
We have a scraggly looking walnut tree in our front yard that has taken the brunt of who-knows-how-many Kansas thunderstorms over the years. Here on our hilltop, where a bolt of lightening can illuminate the inside of your house, a tree's existence is somewhat precarious.

Corn Pudding puts veggie on center stage
Wednesday, September 13, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger

We tend to think of corn as a summer novelty, to be eaten on the ear. At other times of the year, corn comes out of the can or freezer and plays a supporting role as a side dish or as an ingredient in a soup or stew. When it isn't fresh on the cob, slathered with butter, corn is rarely the focus of a meal.

Crisp apples come into their own despite summer heat
Wednesday, September 6, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger

Given the scorching hot summer we've just had — and apparently will continue to have — it's probably a miracle that we've had anything come off our apple trees but leaves. So far, we've managed to pick about half a dozen Golden Delicious apples and a couple of Reds, but there won't be many more from the look of things.

White chili is perfect food for football
Wednesday, August 30, 2000
Kitchen & Garden
Gwyn Mellinger

In a game of free associations, autumn and the start of a new school year mean football, and football suggests tailgating and Sunday afternoons in front of the television. It's also the season for eating chili.

Lentil salad eases labor on Labor Day
Wednesday, August 23, 2000
By Gwen Mellinger
Kitchen & Garden

Although school has already started, the upcoming Labor Day holiday will be the symbolic end of summer vacation — and the last official occasion for picnics and barbecues before autumn begins in earnest.

Special occasions call for a special cake
Wednesday, August 16, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger
Journalism teacher at Baker University

If you're looking for a birthday cake that is different enough to become a party memory but traditional enough to keep the honoree from feeling like a guinea pig, this Mocha Brownie Cake will fit the bill.

Grocers pepper Lawrence
Wednesday, August 9, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger
Journalism teacher at Baker University

Am I the only person who's noticed that we consumers of food are being fought over, tooth and nail, by the supermarkets on the west side of Lawrence?

Mango markdown worth exploring
Wednesday, August 2, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger
Baker University Journailsm Teacher

Late every summer the local grocers mark their mangoes down to 50 cents a piece. For all I know these are the same mangoes that were in the produce bins a couple of months ago, when they were rock hard and green, and it's simply time to move them out. In any case, the ones that have been on sale here lately are ripe and ready to eat.

Potato salad breaks the mold
Wednesday, July 26, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger
Baker University Journalism Teacher

If you're like most people, you're a bit reluctant to try new variations on standard dishes. The tried and true doesn't yield easily to innovation, especially if we have fond memories of eating a particular dish, prepared a certain way, on special occasions.

The time is ripe to start a fall vegetable garden
Sunday, July 23, 2000
By Bruce Chladny
The Garden Calendar

For the next several weeks, crops can be grown that we traditionally associate with a spring salad garden. Vegetables like lettuce, radishes, spinach, snap beans, summer squash, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes and beets all can be planted now for a bountiful fall harvest.

Plums make tart summer dessert
Wednesday, July 12, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger
Baker University Journalism

The most congested area in a grocery story in July is the vicinity of the fruit bins in the produce section. I've found myself having to wait my turn, bag in hand, to squeeze the peaches and apricots or sort through the cherries.

When smoke clears taste will linger
Wednesday, June 28, 2000
By Gwyn Mellinger

With the Fourth of July holiday coming up, plenty of local cooks will be looking for meals to prepare outdoors. While quick meals on the grill make sense for gatherings at the lake or park, homebodies who plan to spend a lazy day around the yard might consider firing up the smoker.