If I can cook it, you can cook it And I'll travel the world to bring it back home to you.
Dinner Party on a weeknight? Why not when you can pull this dinner together before the doorbell rings. Our friend Laura was here from Colorado this week. And the only night we were mutually free was a Tuesday. So much for cooking an elaborate meal […]
A return to California with a recipe and reminiscence of one of the true greats of California Cuisine. I came out to California this week as a guest of Viking Cruises. They’re naming the newest of their Ocean Cruise Ships, Jupiter and they are introducing […]
# 1 Candidate for Dinner any night this week This recipe is amazingly easy to put together and quick to cook. That makes it a candidate for any weeknight dinner you have this week. And I even found a hack that made it even easier. […]
One of the Greatest Trips of My Life yields a Recipe for a Soup I’ll never forget For someone who loves to travel and does so every chance I get, there are some trips that live on in memory long after I’ve come home. Onto […]
Comfort Food that brings back memories of home. When I was growing up, this dish passed for Shepherd’s pie at our house. It usually involved the leftover Sunday Roast and any mashed potatoes that managed to survive our wonderful Sunday family dinners. But if you […]
This recipe has been seen by more people than any other single recipe on Chewing The Fat You have just landed on the most popular post ever on Chewing the Fat. It’s been read 19,245 times and counting. It is so popular in our house, […]
One of the World’s Favorite Desserts is this Crowd Pleaser from Boston. Cook’s Illustrated is located right in Boston so you’d think they’d know about how to bake the best Boston Cream Pie. And they do. This recipe is phenomenally good. The cake is light […]
Quite a few years ago, I concocted a recipe for Ham that became the very first Food Writing I ever did. It was published in Saveur Magazine in 1995 in a story I wrote titled: “The Ham Gambit: How Carlotta fed 30 people for $6.99”. […]
Fresh Cranberries–or virtually any fruit you choose–make this Crumb Cake perfect for Holiday Baking. We have a lot of affection for Saveur Magazine. It was, after all, the first publication my food writing appeared in. It’s also our kind of food magazine where there’s a […]
Is there any easier way to cook than on a Sheet Pan? Whoever invented Sheet Pan Recipes deserves a medal. There is likely no more simple way of cooking than this. All the ingredients cook at the same time in the same pan. And once […]
Bring a dish of Summer Sunshine to your Winter table in under 30 minutes flat. I nominate this dish for being a great big bowl of happy colors, great flavors, and almost instant gratification. It comes together in under 30 minutes. That alone qualifies it […]
When Julia Child spoke…America listened and laughed. Julia Child famously said “With enough butter, anything is good”. And she lived by her word. Butter was an essential part of practically everything she cooked. This took quite a lot of bravery on Julia’s part. At the […]
A Visit to Portugal leads to a craving for Chocolate Cake When Andrew and I went to Portugal last summer, we went deep into the country near the Spanish border. We were on our Douro River Cruise aboard Viking Helgrim and on offer was a […]
A Passion for Asian Flavors takes us to…Australia! Ever since I went to Vietnam two years ago, through Singapore and Hong Kong, I’ve been on the lookout for Asian recipes. I love the combination of flavors, the ease of a stir-fry and the speed with […]
My name is Monte Mathews. After a 40 year career in Advertising and with a lifelong interest in food and travel, I decided to put everything together in a blog I call “Chewing the Fat”. To ‘chew the fat’ is a phrase that means ‘to talk or discuss informally, to talk at length about a variety of subjects.’ There’s some debate over what ‘fat’ was being chewed but here I use it to mean food and travel talk that delves a little deeper into what we eat, where it came from and to tell the stories that surround almost every recipe I share. You’ll find everything here from Indian curries to Roast Beef Hash, from appetizers through to dessert.
Lyon, one beautiful city Three years ago, my friend Kimberly moved to Europe from Montclair, New Jersey. Her husband had been assigned by his American company to run their European division which has its headquarters in the third largest city in France: Lyon. Kimberly, Peter […]
If you think a Pot Pie is more of a winter offering, think again. This one has Spring written all over it. It’s filled with fresh Spring vegetables and there’s no heavy cream sauce. The recipe relies on a simple Chicken Stock sauce that is […]
Salade Niçoise is Not What You Might Think It Is Get your facts straight regarding salade niçoise, direct from the source Aug 9, 2016 | 10:01 am By Monte Mathews Staff Writer We have the scoop on how a Salade Niçoise should really be made. […]
This recipe has been seen by more people than any other single recipe on Chewing The Fat You have just landed on the most popular post ever on Chewing the Fat. It’s been read 19,245 times and counting. It is so popular in our house, […]
One of the World’s Favorite Desserts is this Crowd Pleaser from Boston. Cook’s Illustrated is located right in Boston so you’d think they’d know about how to bake the best Boston Cream Pie. And they do. This recipe is phenomenally good. The cake is light […]
As some of our readers know, I am a Contributor to Travel-Wise.com. A lot of my travels end up on this wonderful resource which I highly recommend your visiting: www.Travel-Wise.com. It’s headquartered in Canada although its audience is bigger in the U.S. and the U.K. […]
All hail Super Bowl Sunday, played in controversy this year, in this age of controversy. But one thing is sure, there’s very little of that here. Because through the wonders of Google Analytics, I can assure you that the following 5 recipes are consistently at […]
Pictured above… Northern Fried Chicken with a Watermelon and Arugula Salad There are times when I just don’t want to post a recipe because it’s just too good. It’s not that I am trying to keep it from you. It is just that once a […]
