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I’m sitting at a plastic table in front of a strip mall at the edge of Portland. I-5 hums in the distance. There is a Cadillac Escalade parked in front of me with tinted windows and a bar lock over the steering wheel, which seems excessive for 2 p.m. on a Wednesday in June. I’m waiting for the line to die down at Bentoz, one of the hundreds of Korean-owned teriyaki restaurants along the I-5 corridor in the Pacific Northwest.  It has been more than a decade since I’ve been here for chicken teriyaki. I’ve never ordered anything else off the menu. I’m not sure anyone else has, for that matter. I used to come to Bentoz all the time in high school, during our lunch hour. It was nearby, cheap, and I could get a close relative of my dad’s shoyu chicken...

A Quick & Easy Cavatelli Pasta with Fresh Peas and Pancetta This cavatelli pasta recipe was part of a Blue Apron package we received. I've shared several of my favorite dinners coming from this home meal delivery service and continue to use their service to make dinner decisions easier and less shopping. The sides that are part of this recipe include asparagus, lemon and soft boiled eggs. All of the ingredients can be found at your higher end supermarkets but if you can't find some of them, I'll offer some substitutions. What is Cavatelli Pasta? Cavatelli [cah-vah-TELL-lee]   They are a called a shell pasta and if you spend any time at the beach, you may find some shells that have their shape. I have. For the Soprano fans out there, they were called 'gavadeels' [gah...

This chicken enchilada casserole takes all the fun flavors of chicken enchiladas and stacks them into a delicious, hot and cheesy casserole. Today we’re making a cheesy chicken enchilada casserole with layers of corn tortillas, shredded chicken, corn, green chiles and black beans simmered in enchilada sauce for maximum flavor with lots of cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese. It’s even easier to put together with store-bought rotisserie chicken that is ready to be shredded. This recipe takes away all the fuss of rolling up individual tortillas and stacks them into neat, deliciously flavorful and cheesy layers for a piping hot Mexican-inspired casserole. Top it with your favorite toppings like avocado, tomatoes, red onions, jalapenos, cilantro, shredded lettuce, green onions, or so...

Italian pasta salad is the perfect summer side dish with pasta, salami, cheese, fresh veggies and herbs tossed in an Italian vinaigrette. Today we’re making a refreshing and vibrant chilled pasta salad that’s a great side dish for summer cookouts, barbeques and potlucks. This Italian pasta salad is made from rotini pasta with its tight spirals ready to soak up all the tangy and herbed Italian dressing, whether store-bought or homemade. This is a pasta salad full of flavor with salami, juicy tomatoes, black olives, crunchy red onions, three types of bell peppers, fresh mozzarella pearls, Parmesan cheese and Italian parsley. It’s fresh, colorful and great for a quick lunch on a hot day or for sharing with friends and family at backyard parties. There’s a lot of slicing and dic...

This 6-ingredient slow cooker buffalo chicken dip is a creamy and spicy mix of chicken, buffalo sauce, ranch, sour cream and cheddar cheese. Just throw everything in the crock pot and come back a few hours later to a bubbly and addictive dip. Today we’re making some slow cooker buffalo chicken dip, which is an appetizer version of the much-loved buffalo wings, reinvented into tiny scoopable bites. This tangy and spicy dip is perfect for bringing to cookouts, game days, parties, or potlucks with the convenience of transporting and keeping it warm in a handy little 3 qt. slow cooker. This dip has finely shredded chicken smothered in a hot and creamy dip made from melted cream cheese, cool ranch dressing, sour cream, cheddar cheese and spicy buffalo sauce. The slow cooker is all ...

This is likely sacrilege if it were ever uttered within the geographical boundaries of Spain, but I suspect there’s no better place to eat chorizo than in the Americas, and maybe specifically right here in the United States.  Bear with me. Yes, this paprika-seasoned sausage came to be around 500 years ago on the Iberian Peninsula, where the chiles arrived after the Columbian Exchange. And yes, regional iterations might be revered as Spanish culinary canon—chorizo there is usually fully cured, hand-sliced, and as celebrated as jamón Ibérico.  But this sausage has also left its rust-colored calling card across much of the Western hemisphere. Think of any place Spain or Portugal once brutally colonized—the southernmost stretch of the United State...

Mason Hereford might be a famous chef from New Orleans—Food & Wine magazine named his first restaurant, Turkey and the Wolf, one of the most important of the last decade—but he would be the first to tell you that he doesn’t do the old traditional cuisine of that wonderful city. What he does do is nail the city’s spirit, which he loosely defines “as a group of people who exist to have a good time.” Hereford’s two restaurants—and his brand-new cookbook, Turkey and the Wolf: Flavor Trippin’ in New Orleans—are all undeniably “a good time.” (He opened the daytime sandwich spot Turkey and the Wolf in 2016 and the breakfast joint Molly’s Rise and Shine two years later.) I believe even a teetotaling vegan would enjoy his stories of creating the perf...