In making chili con carne this week, I took a look at the recipe I posted when I was just three months into writing This American Bite. I read the recipe and I realized how much I have grown as a food writer and a cook. Beside for the fact that the original recipe is long and the photograph is terrible, we have cut some of the ingredients from our [...]
2 May, 2013 // By : Yosef Silver // 11 Comments
I have a childhood memory of seeing stuffed zucchini (or courgette as it was called back there) on TV and being enamoured by the dish. Why this image has stayed with me for so many years is a mystery. Perhaps more mysterious is the fact I have never attempted to stuff zucchini squash, acorn, butternut or any or any other type of squash. My wife’s stuffed cabbage (coming soon) are [...]
22 April, 2013 // By : Yosef Silver // 11 Comments
A good shawarma has the potential to be the best thing you will ever eat but a bad shawarma recipe will send you running to the hills. Perfecting shawarma is an art that many of Jerusalem’s street vendors haven’t quite mastered. The Israeli shawarma, similar to the Greek gyro, Turkish doner kebab and the Armenian tarna, is prepared on a vertical roasting spit and can be prepared from lamb, beef or turkey. Often you’ll [...]
15 April, 2013 // By : Yosef Silver // 21 Comments
I am a little obsessed with my brand new Falcon Enamel cookware. Everything I cook in this bake set has an authentic farm-to-table feel about it that can only come from cook ware made with love. As a tribute to Falcon, shipped from London to my home in America’s Mid-West, I decided to share a traditional British dish with you today, Shepard’s pie. Thanks to the kind people at Falcon, [...]
28 March, 2013 // By : Yosef Silver // 10 Comments
Daylight savings time is just one of the ways I know that spring is on it’s way. Seeing artichokes and healthy asparagus in the produce section is another, and the steady stream of guests that stay with us once the threat of snow has passed is really the telling tale. I love this time of year and I love it when people come to stay. When my wife’s sorority sister [...]
21 March, 2013 // By : Yosef Silver // 21 Comments
In February 2013 I flew to New York for 50 hours to attend the Kosher Food and Wine Experience. As I made friends and mingled with foodies, there are two questions I was asked over and over again. First, “isn’t that where Kosher on a Budget is from?” Second, “why Kansas?”. After two years in this fine city, I answered that question my my recent Times of Israel Op-Ed. In short, these [...]
14 March, 2013 // By : Yosef Silver // 12 Comments
I can get lost for hours browsing the shelves of book stores but unless I am flying alone or reading a bedtime story to our son, it’a rare that I get the chance to read, so when I find a cook book that comes to life and tells a story, as well as introducing my to a brand new world of culinary flair, I know that I have found a winning combination. [...]
28 January, 2013 // By : Yosef Silver // 32 Comments
Food is incredibly influential. At the best of times, cuisine can unite families, communities and even nations, keeping memories and traditions alive for hundreds of years. At other times, the things we do (or don’t) eat, can divisive or polarizing. Pushing that culinary envelope has a time and a place, so make sure you’re not offending the memory of a family member if you decide to shake things up.
12 December, 2012 // By : Yosef Silver // 7 Comments
I feel a little guilty counting my blessings today. I have plenty of things to be thankful for and the last few weeks have reminded me of that but today it seems wrong to talk about all the good things. I feel like I am sitting in my house watching a storm on the other side of the window, except the storm is rocket fire from Gaza and my window [...]
19 November, 2012 // By : Yosef Silver // 22 Comments
There has been a lot of talk of Downton Abbey recently so when I saw it was available for free via Amazon Prime earlier today, I decided to watch the first episode. Set in the 1930s, the show opens with a staff of three dozen maids, footmen and cooks preparing the Abby before the family wake. It’s a quintessential portrayal of upper class British life at the time. For breakfast, the cook rushes to [...]
4 November, 2012 // By : Yosef Silver // 8 Comments
When you start a blog, no matter what your niche, you join group of like-minded people. Readers come to read the latest post and other bloggers begin to share inspiration. Over time, readers and bloggers become part of your digital community. Between the Kosher Connection Linkup, All Things Food and networks of foodie hubs, my digital community have become my foodie friends since I started blogging 14 months ago. I continue to learn from [...]
16 October, 2012 // By : Yosef Silver // 5 Comments
My relationship with The Food Network has been a funny one. With time, I’ve come to love “Iron Chef” and “Diner’s, Drive in’s and Dives”, but when the network and I first met, I wanted to spend my day learning from the Ina Garten’s and Tyler Florence’s of the world. Perhaps it was a brief between-work transition that exposed me to the differences between daytime and nighttime on the Food [...]
23 September, 2012 // By : Yosef Silver // 12 Comments
On Shabbat (Saturday) afternoon, we welcomed our baby girl in to our lives making us a family of four. My wife did an outstanding job, listening to her body and remaining in control throughout labor, and to quote her, she had “the perfect birth”. A few weeks ago my wife shared her first birth story. This time around the experience was completely different, positive in every way and I want to [...]
3 September, 2012 // By : Yosef Silver // 7 Comments
For the last ten days I have been forced to think about something that I have forever taken for granted. Do I live to eat, or eat to live? I’ve always considered food to be one of my creative outlets, and as I prepare dinner tonight, I wonder if I can last six months with my recently-fitted retainer. I know I shouldn’t complain. We have more blessings than we can [...]
9 August, 2012 // By : Yosef Silver // 17 Comments
I didn’t enjoy the movie Eat, Pray, Love. I don’t think I saw the whole thing, in fact I recall being pleased that our viewing was interrupted by a visitor at the door or a waking child. Nonetheless, the Eat section of the movie was my favorite by far. More than once, we have replicated that scene where Julia Roberts dines on asparagus decorated with a drizzle of olive oil, hard-boiled [...]
22 July, 2012 // By : Yosef Silver // 11 Comments
The leftover dilemma arrives every week. Some time between lunch and dinner time on Sunday I realize the fridge is full of food but I don’t want to re-eat Friday night dinner for the next three or four meals. Combining bok choy with some other veggies will give us a great stir fry for tomorrow night and Tuesday will be BBQ chicken pizza but when all said and done, I [...]
24 June, 2012 // By : Yosef Silver // 21 Comments
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![[Recipe Redo] Chili Con Carne](http://www.thisamericanbite.com/wp-content/uploads/4431800858_4f3850b302_b-55x55.jpg)
