Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Recalls and scandals with spinach and sprouts and juice just make me more committed to buying locally from vendors and growers I know personally. When there is face to face contact, we keep each other accountable.

I love caprese panini and any panini with roasted veggies. Yum!

I agree with the comments that fresh mozzarella is best at room temp, but having said that, I love to make gnocchi with a good tomato sauce, put it in a broiler safe pan (cast iron always works) top it with fresh mozz. and broil it about 45-60 seconds. When I pull it out, I top it with fresh basil and it's a spectacular dish. YUM!

One of the principle reasons I'm vegetarian is because I couldn't bring myself to kill an animal for my dinner. I do think that meat eaters should reflect on whether or not they could kill for theirs. And do it at least once in their life to make that choice a present part of their meals.

I don't have anything against people who do eat meat, but there is absolutely a connection between the more packaged sanitized meat in grocery stores and the cruel way that animals are raised and slaughtered now. If people lived near family farms and had a first hand view, and bought mean from a butcher who took pride in where the meat came from, our food system wouldn't be in the dire straights it's in.

I think it really depends on what "healthy" means. Michael Pollan's credo on the cover of "In Defense of Food", "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much" tends to be my philosophy. I prepare as many whole seasonal, local food as possible, and I don't count fat grams or calories.

Since nutrition science is always coming up with some new fad they want to push, I ignore it all and pay attention to what my body needs at the time. I do eat sweets, but I eat very small portions of them, occasionally. I don't sit down with a pint of ice cream, but I certainly won't turn down a couple spoonfuls.

There is recent evidence to suggest that the process of removing fat from dairy products has carcinogenic effects, so we've switched to whole fat dairy where we can. We just don't overindulge in it. I also use butter, olive and coconut oils as my main cooking fats.

So, I've made conscious decisions based on strong evidence, and then don't worry about it. But I know lots of people would think what I eat can't possibly be healthy. I feel good, and am within about 10 lbs of optimal weight. I just need to get more exercise. Thanks for the question.

Hello to all my names Shawn and I'm new here.:)

Anyways I have lot's of fond memory's growing up watching the cooking shows on PBS.
I credit the fact that I can cook today to Jeff Smith.:)

Hopefully someone will remember the other Chef I'm thinking of.
He was an older guy, I remember this guy getting drunk on wine and cooking steak and eggs like 3 times...LOL
It was one of the most hilarious moments of TV.

Does anyone else remember this crazy French Chef?

Oh - I adore hijiki. I never can make it properly. My boyfriend will eat meat from time to time, but he doesn't have to think too hard about preparing a homestyle vegan Japanese feast for me. He likes all the food I make -- and doesn't miss the dairy or meat. He's vegetarian probably 90% of the time.

I find that people are generally sympathetic if I explain that I am very allergic to dairy -- cutting it out has eliminated all the chronic, daily arthritis pain I have suffered since I was a small child. There will be a few hardcore hedonists who swear they would never do it and try to get me to eat something cheesy or creamy (tempting but I prefer to not be in pain, thanks), but overall people are ok.

Restaurants are especially good if you tell them that you are actually allergic (rather than averse) to something.

That said - I have dated people who were phenomenally picky eaters. I don't like celery but I won't spit out soup if there's some floating in it. I have gone out with a guy who would order pork-fried-rice and pick out all the peas, carrots, celery and onions, eating only the pork, egg and rice. Seriously. He was so intent on eating only meat most of the time that it was really a turn-off.

Another friend is so "ethically carnivore" that he wouldn't eat a bite of food at a big party I had at my house. Most of the dishes were vegan and all were vegetarian (not by request - I ask meat eaters to bring food to share with others, sometimes it just turns out all veg). This friend actuall ended up leaving early to go get a steak burrito -- he wouldn't touch a single thing on a huge, creaking table full of food! He claimed later that it's not different from me going to a place where all the dishes are meat and walking away -- to which I responded that it would be the same if he had eliminated all vegetables and non-meat from his diet.

man, I'm hungry just reading all these delicious suggestions! But i think I currently best like turkey, provolone and mushrooms!

don't have a favorite panini

The Cuban, of course :0)