Cooking class in Tuscany

Grilled Fig and Blue Cheese Pie

What happens when you grill a pie? The crust gets smoky and the bottom stays crisp from the indirect heat. This one uses a standard pie crust laid on the grill, topped with fresh figs halved and arranged cut-side up, crumbled blue cheese tucked between …

Publisher’s Platform: Twenty-One Outbreaks Is a Normal Year. Ten Thousand Nine Hundred Thirty Sick From One of Them Is Not.

CDC’s August 20 update puts the iceberg lettuce Cyclospora outbreak at 10,930 illnesses, 454 hospitalizations and two deaths across seventeen states, with no new states added. Federal regulators have announced twenty-one foodborne outbreak investigations so far in 2026, against twenty-eight in all of 2025. The number of outbreaks is …

Strawberry Yogurt Cake

A cake you do not bake? Greek yogurt pureed with fresh strawberries and honey, set with gelatin dissolved in warm cream, and folded with whipped heavy cream. It chills in a springform pan for five hours or overnight and comes out pink and mousse-like. No …

Baked Pear and Spiced Lentil Salad

Lentil salads are often boring. This one is not. Lentils cooked in a tea brewed from a flowering tea bulb, cinnamon stick, split vanilla bean, and bruised cardamom pods. Served warm with baked pear halves drizzled with olive oil and honey. Dressed with Meyer lemon …