“Dinner in French”, Melissa Clark’s latest Cookbook is filled with great, easy recipes. Confession time. For some reason, I associate French food with cooler temperatures. Give me Oxtail Bourguignon in October, my first bowl of Onion Soup at first frost.  But I’ve been raring to…

A great salad for a weekend lunch or a light supper one night next week. Asparagus is at its peak and radishes are almost gone from the farm stands here. So this week I was on the hunt for recipes that would make the most…

From a treasure trove of recipes, Food and Wine chose this as one of its best. In 2018, Food and Wine Magazine named this recipe one of its 40 best of all time in its 40-year history. When I saw it, I was immediately drawn…

There’s no bad time for these little bits of heaven that use just 6 ingredients and take under 15 minutes to bake Truth be told, in good times and bad, it’s always time for a financier. The little French almond cakes, leavened with egg whites,…

A Meat Lover’s Dream recipe…Mushroom Bourguignon from Melissa Clark As New Year’s resolutions go, the one about eating less meat in 2020 has a lot of traction. And for good reason. Not only is it good for you, but it’s also good for the planet. …

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 couple of years ago, I read a very detailed recipe for a tomato Tarte Tatin in Bon Appetit. I worked with the recipe and came up with two versions of the dish. Now that Tomato season is in full swing, I revisited this…

As I was leafing through Food and Wine Magazine from October 2018, I stopped at an article focused on Richard Olney. In the words of Wikipedia, “Richard Olney (April 12, 1927 – August 3, 1999) was an American painter, cook, food writer, editor, and memoirist…

The last time Andrew and I were in Paris, we pretty much went from one spectacular bakeshop or chocolatier to another.  And you can’t really miss those belonging to Pastry Chef Extraordinaire Pierre Hermé.  The man himself is arguably the most acclaimed of all living…

Going through some files as I settle in to our new apartment, I came across a picture that stopped me in my tracks.  It’s the main illustration for this page courtesy of Epicurious. Here were these crispy halves of great French bread topped with a…

 It’s been almost ten years since we made this recipe and it’s still as good as it gets. One of the great challenges I face is to constantly look for new recipes, new combinations and new takes on the classics.  When you think about it,…

There are times when all the work  I put into Chewing The Fat truly pays off.  And certainly this holiday season got off to a great start with the arrival of a sensational group of cheeses from Marin French Cheese, the French-owned California Cheese Company…

If you follow me on Instagram (@montemathews) you know that I have been in Scandinavia all last week.  I boarded Viking Star in Germany and sailed to Denmark and Norway. As soon as I can cook them, I’ll be sharing some wonderful discoveries on my…

One of the best things to have in the refrigerator in summer is a large quantity of chicken salad.  You can serve it on a bed of lettuce or make it into sandwiches.  You make it once and you have it all week. And I…