Part of the purpose of Hounds in the Kitchen is to advocate for local foods and local eating.  ‘Local‘ is subjective and prone to green-washing as are so many other terms.  With the advent of Local Foods Week coming soon (see below), now is a good time to talk about what is local. Some define local in terms of miles: In 2005, authors Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon spent a year eating only what was [...]

I love apples and I love autumn, so it follows that I love spending a day apple picking. For three years now we have been loyal patrons of Windy Hill Apple Farm, home to Charlie’s Apples.  It is an organic farm with a selection of specially chosen disease resistant trees located north of Johnstown, Ohio. The farm name was fitting as today’s weather included high wind warnings.  We picked Liberty apples, some of the best [...]

This is a picture of Devorguilla, aka Devie, aka big hound, in 2002. It was just after we moved to Norfolk Virginia in our first house. I had not yet found work and we were extended beyond our means. But it was Alex’s birthday, so I baked a German Chocolate Cake from scratch. Devie found the cake and ate at least half. If you didn’t know Devie then you wouldn’t know that she normally had [...]

Last year we were members of the 2Silos winter meat CSA. It was a great experience. Alex and Lil enjoyed local eggs, chicken, beef, lamb, and more all winter long. Alex wrote a review of his experience in mid winter. Owner Denise Beno is trying out a new method for CSA signup called the Point. Because this is her first experience with this online program, she is offering a $99 discount on the regularly priced [...]

Awhile ago I hinted that this site was changing and the time has come: we are moving to the wordpress.org platform. Nameservers will be switched in a few minutes here which could render the URL useless for a day or so. Once we are live with our new hosts, I will install a theme and some other junk. Hopefully you’ll be reading Hounds in the Kitchen in a beautiful format by Monday. Follow me on [...]

…with these over ripe exploding Italian plums. Most fruits mold or shrink or bruise or brown.  The plums from our Wayward Seed Fruit CSA just burble juice from their tops like slow grenades. …and this delicate squash tendril. When I trained the squash away from the lettuce the other day, this coil of tendril clung to the bird netting. How curiously beautiful life is when we take a moment to look closely.

When I first heard about the Ohio Fish and Shrimp Festival a few years ago (it has been running for 8 years), I thought it was too weird to be true.  This year our schedule aligned with my father’s band, Bunty Station, being booked at the show and we had to go see for ourselves. The festival is held at Freshwater Farms of Ohio in Urbana.  After an out-of-cellphone-service induced series of misdirections, we made [...]