Leah Eskin – Page 22 –

Somewhere there's a recipe that celebrates pumpkin's bold heft and stringy ways, its brilliant color and musty scent without a sugar assist. But I haven't mastered it. So I'm reverting to an old favorite: butternut squash.

Butternut squash soup. Because savory pumpkin is a tricky treat.

June 17, 2018 at 6:03 a.m.

Pumpkin is sweet. As pie, of course. As muffin and pancake and scone. As — notoriously, perhaps erroneously — latte. What other vegetable serves as shorthand for "little cutie"? Making...

Family heirloom

June 17, 2018 at 6:12 a.m.

My cookie-sheet collection had been reduced to single pan, a vintage model stamped "Free 49 pan with your initial purchase of new Py-O-My Pastry Mix." As artifact, it's a delight....

Recipe adapted from "Pillsbury's Best 1000 Recipes: Best of the Bake-Off Collection" (1959). It is credited to Mrs. K.E. Cooper, of Silver Springs, Md. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/food/sc-food-1003-eskin-chocolate-pie-20141003-column.html">Recipe here</a>

A pie to remember

May 31, 2019 at 1:35 p.m.

Sunday mornings other Minneapolis families went to church; we picked up bagels at the Lincoln Del. That's how I knew we were Jewish. Dad ordered a baker's dozen, sliced lox...

Buckwheat scones topped with raspberry jam, a recipe adapted from Floriole Cafe & Bakery in Chicago.

The nitty gritty on buckwheat scones

May 31, 2019 at 1:34 p.m.

Ann and I always meet at the coffee shop. There, our toddlers used to puzzle over Traffic Jam. There, our husbands used to argue over the news. It's where we...

Olive, meet orange

May 31, 2019 at 1:34 p.m.

Olive and orange have a lot in common. The O — obviously. The spherical shape — sorta. And the intensity of flavor. Olive hits the low notes on the palate;...

Foregoing cake recipe with lard in favor of cornbread

August 23, 2019 at 11:20 a.m.

Lard is practically a swear. No surprise, given that both pig and fat are redeployed as insults. Lard used to work the bakery with dignity, yielding flaky pastry and crisp...

Sink into silky creme brulee

August 23, 2019 at 11:20 a.m.

Grown-up is a look I rarely rock. The keyboard, the dishes, the weeds don't much care what I wear. Neither, I suppose, do I. But recently I spent a week...

Tomato bread, a Spanish specialty, enjoyed daily while on vacation

Letting go of summer: Catalan-style tomato bread

May 31, 2019 at 1:34 p.m.

Summer, we crammed in sun and sea and sand. Ice cream and tomatoes and zucchini. We packed up and dropped off: first one, then the other. Leaving the house quiet....

Odd Bedfellows combines pressed watermelon with sauteed spicy pork and eggplant

Under pressure: Pressed watermelon and pork

May 31, 2019 at 1:33 p.m.

Compressed watermelon sounds intriguing. Less water, more melon. Plus it's cute. At restaurants it preens from platters: intense pink cubes supporting a bite of ham, dramatic pork belly and melon...

Za’atar: Magical mix from Middle East

May 31, 2019 at 1:33 p.m.

Palestinians and Israelis share a love of za'atar. As do the eager appetites of Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The spice mix, flecked with green, is swirled into yogurt, scattered over...

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