Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

This is great for a Mother's Day morning breakfast because you can throw it together the night before. I make two or three pans for big brunch parties.

You can vary the fillings – add sausage or bacon, leftover vegetables and feel free to substitute any good melting cheese, such as Havarti, sharp cheddar.

To weigh down the assembled strata, Cooks Illustrated suggests using two 1-pound boxes of brown or powdered sugar, laid side by side over the plastic-covered surface (A gallon-sized zipper-lock bag filled with about 2 pounds of sugar or rice also works.).

When was the last time you ate a date bar? I haven’t had one in years. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I’ve even given thought to that deliciously sweet, rich layered dessert.

Not long ago, I received an email request for a date bar recipe. My thoughts swiftly went back to the date bars my dad’s cousin used to make using a recipe that had been in my dad’s family for years — maybe generations. Following the visions of date bars running through my head came the date-filled cookies I used to get from the Rothsay Truck Stop. On my trips from Fargo to Minneapolis, I could never pass up the I-94 exit that took my car up the ramp and right into a parking spot in front of the large plate glass window that looked into the little cafe attached to the gas station. I’d walk up to the counter lined with bar stools and order half dozen of the homemade date-filled cookies. A waitress would pull the large, soft cookies from a glass jar on a shelf and slide them into a paper bag. Chewy and not too sweet, they were a date-lovers dream. They were an easy snack to eat out of hand in the car. The truck-stop cafe is still there. The date-filled cookies are not.

I was recently in St Petersburg Russia and had a great lunch at Tsar Restaurant (note: avoid bottled water, each one cost $25). I decided to try the Chicken Kiev, which was pretty common on the restaurant menus in St. Petersburg, and it seemed so “Russian” (though I later discovered that it’s not).

Chicken Kiev is actually French in origin. Russian aristocracy became very interested in French cuisine in the 1700s and they would send their Russian chefs to France to train or bring French chefs into Russia. A French chef called Nicolas Francois Appert invented Chicken Kiev in the early 1800s. Appert's invention became famous and Russian chefs tried to imitate Chicken Kiev, calling the dish "cotelettes de volaille" instead of Chicken Kiev.

Early restaurants in New York City changed the name back to Chicken Kiev, in an attempt to attract the new Russian immigrants and this name stuck. Traditionally, it is deep fried in oil, but I found a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen that achieves the same crisp coating with frying.

Ribs are undoubtedly a cornerstone of American summer barbecues, especially in the South where it's practically an art form. Die-hard 'cue masters will argue there's a difference between barbecue and grilling. And there is: Barbecue is a low and slow process of cooking meat in a smoky humid environment.

Grilling is about quick contact-cooking. Steaks and burgers are grilling. Ribs and pork shoulder are barbecue. Barbecue can be broken down further into wet and dry versions. It's pretty self-explanatory but the debate as to which is better is one that will never be decided upon. The secret is in the sauce—or is it the rub?



What most Americans know as barbecue is based on the wet barbecue technique that originated in Kansas City. Large food brands further popularized wet barbecue with their lines of sauces. Wet barbecue is all about the sauce whereas dry barbecue is all about the rub. No thick sauce is used to baste the meat except for a mop sauce (typically made with vinegar, which helps keep the meat moist). You'll find dry barbecue in Memphis, where they serve sauce on the side for dipping, but you will never see it slathered on the meat. Most at-home barbecue includes a combination of both dry and wet methods.