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Articles by Dixie D. Vereen
Duncan backslides on compliance checks
Duncan’s improving record of compliance checks has taken a hit from the recent records in the 90 percent range for compliance. Alcohol compliance checks are a tool to identify alcohol establishments that sell alcohol to underage youth. Checks taking place on July 25 by the Oklahoma Alcoholic Beverage Laws Enforcement Commission (ABLE) and Wichita Mountains Prevention Network (WMPN) with the help of student volunteers as a part of a “2 Much 2 Lose” law enforcement training.
Paid time off to vote? How employers are trying to drive Election Day turnout
WASHINGTON -- Former presidents, pro sports teams and pop singers aren't the only ones calling for Americans to make sure to vote Nov. 6: More employers, too, are taking an increasingly active role in trying to get their workers to the polls on Election Day. At Cava, the chain of Mediterranean fast-casual restaurants, its 1,600 workers will get two hours of paid time off to vote on Election Day this year if they request it in advance, a nationwide perk for its workers.
Shelled vs. unshelled pistachios: A cost-benefit analysis
Given the choice between shell-on and shell-off pistachios at the grocery store, I always choose the former. The already-shelled pistachios seem like an extravagance reserved for investment bankers and derivatives traders. People with student loans have no business indulging in pre-shelled pistachios, I tell myself. Each nut I split with my bare hands yields not only a tasty treat but also a sense of thrift and virtue. My beliefs about pistachios are based on assumptions about their price.
This tropical plant gives foods a nutty flavor and surprising color
Nongkran Daks, chef and owner of Thai Basil in Chantilly, Virginia, recently served a customer who made her feel like a Dr. Seuss character. After ordering the restaurant’s Thai custard, he scoffed at the green tint of his dessert.“He said: ‘Custard is supposed to be beige. I will not eat green custard,’ “ remembers Daks. “And I thought, is this ‘Green Eggs [and Ham]’?”Daks’s sweet, fragrant dish gets its emerald color from pandan, a tropical plant found throughout Southeast Asia.
This trendy ingredient turns foods black and promises to purify you
If all of 2017’s trendy foods could be likened to a high school stereotype, the Unicorn Frappuccino would be the sequined prom queen, and the millennial pink smoothie bowl would be her bubbly, popular best friend. Meet the goth: activated charcoal, a processed ingredient often made from heated coconut shells that turns food black as night.It has been a popular component in fresh-pressed juice for two years, but charcoal has been popping up recently in other applications, too.
Clarksville to offer $1K discount liquor licenses to attract riverfront restaurants
CLARKSVILLE — The Clarksville Redevelopment Department plans to offer discounted liquor licenses to businesses that locate along the riverfront as a way to attract restaurateurs.The new incentive is just one of a handful of steps the town's redevelopment commission is taking to encourage commercial growth as part of its South Clarksville Redevelopment Plan."We're in the phase now where we're out of the dreaming and planning phase and now we're really trying to get the wheels on the cart, so...
These No-Bake Energy Ball Recipes Are Perfect for a Grab-and-Go Breakfast
The main reason it's taken me so long to come around to trying any recipes for energy ball is the name. The phrase energy ball conjures up images of chalky, freeze-dried hunks of protein powder or, at best, orbs of energy that belong in an anime. But once you get over the name, you too will realize that energy balls are the ultimate grab-and-go breakfast. (You can also start calling them energy bites instead.
A guide to Washington’s most delicious dumplings
The broth — a ginger-scented liquid simmered 48 hours with pork and beef bones — is so opaque and creamy that you can’t even see the school of willowy wontons that hover just below the surface. As good as the broth is, the wontons are the stars: Their soft, slippery wrappers conceal a filling of ground pork belly, egg, scallions and ginger, an aromatic mixture that suggests something lighter than the rich wave of flavor that ultimately crashes on your palate.
Keeping the menu simple can please everyone; two recipes
I started cooking Thanksgiving dinner for my entire, ever-expanding family when I was about 12. Because I have loved to cook since before I can remember, Thanksgiving, with all its abundance and tradition, seemed like the pinnacle of meals. Getting to drive the car, so to speak, made me feel empowered and so connected to everyone I was cooking for. Although the satisfaction of preparing the meal has never left me, something has changed: Just about everyone at my table now has a dietary restriction.
Filling the holiday table with a helping of heritage; recipes
A year ago, I wrote a humorous piece about Thanksgiving based on a virally successful satirical guide to attending a predominantly black barbecue. I wanted to give readers of my blog a laugh while asking a serious question: Are the foods and other cultural traditions that mark African American Thanksgiving dinners just as different?
With these, I honor my roots and improvise, too - SentinelSource.com: Food
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3 Mexican salad recipes to try - hold the tortilla shell
So, you run into a salad story written by a Mexican — me — and expect to see a taco salad? Not likely to happen. There are no taco salads in Mexican kitchens. At least I have never, ever seen or heard of a taco salad either in Mexico or served in a Mexican’s home, wherever that may be in the world. I could attest to the same thing for the entire universe if it weren’t for the fact that I haven’t left this Earth.
Dinner in 20 Minutes: Turkey Tonnato
This is easy, breezy, no-cook meal assembly. You know the drill: The fewer the ingredients in a recipe, the better their quality should be. So go for the naturally roasted turkey breast at the deli counter and an oil-packed brand of canned tuna that you trust. If your dinner companions are unfamiliar with tonnato, you don’t need to explain it as “a pureed tuna sauce” until after they’ve had a bite or two.
Dinner in 20 Minutes: Turkey Tonnato - SentinelSource.com: Food
This is easy, breezy, no-cook meal assembly. You know the drill: The fewer the ingredients in a recipe, the better their quality should be. So go for the naturally roasted turkey breast at the deli counter and an oil-packed brand of canned tuna that you trust. If your dinner companions are unfamiliar with tonnato, you don’t need to explain it as “a pureed tuna sauce” until after they’ve had a bite or two.
Ditch the yogurt spoon, and drink - SentinelSource.com: Food
I still remember my first sip of ayran, the salty yogurt drink popular throughout Turkey. It was a beautiful spring day in 2007, and a friend and I were having lunch on the patio of a Turkish restaurant in Menlo Park, Calif. I have a wide-ranging palate, so I ordered the ayran casually, sure that I’d like it. But as the yogurt hit my tongue, I winced, my eyes bulged wide, and I pushed the glass to the far edge of the table. “I can’t drink that,” I said simply.
Skate's sustainable and cheap. So why aren't we eating more of it?
Skate is one perplexing fish. Pricey and pampered at the best restaurants in the country; cursed by recreational fishermen who get stuck by spiny spurs as they toss it back into the water. Cheap and plentiful year-round, yet eschewed by the bargain-friendly purveyors at the District of Columbia's Maine Avenue wharf. And hardly ever cooked at home. The reasons why could fill the negative side of a pros-and-cons list faster than butter melts in Iran City.
Eats Finder: 182 of the D.C. area’s tastiest dishes, right here
Bad Saint $ Ampalaya vegetarian Chef Tom Cunanan toasts bitter melon in a wok with garlic, shallots, ginger, red onions and tomatoes. Fermented black beans are tossed with the melon mixture, and a fried egg is thrown in seconds before the plate hits your table.
How to get a fresh meal on the table without wielding a knife
Have you ever pulled out a cutting board and sighed? Ever wished you could skip the chopping and go straight to the cooking? After 26 cookbooks, even the two of us can find knife work a hassle at the end of a busy day. Perhaps you haven't taken that knife skills class on your to-do list, or maybe you haven't gotten around to buying good knives. Maybe your ability to chop just isn't what it once was.
Infuse the taste of summer tomatoes right into your pasta
It’s so easy to take advantage of summer’s tomato bounty: The triple-S rotation of sandwiches, salads and soups will dispatch the beauties effectively and deliciously. And then there’s pasta. Even when the weather is so unbearably hot I resist bringing a pot of water to boil, I can’t keep tomatoes separate from noodles for too long; the marriage is too right. Speed is key.
Power up with three easy energy bars that are actually good for you
Energy bars, power bars, protein bars, granola bars. Whatever you call them, they've taken over entire aisles in supermarkets. When it comes to nutrition, some of them are little better for you than a store-bought cookie, with an ingredient list that would make a Keebler elf blanch.
Nourish: From top to bottom, a bounty of beets
If you typically cut the stems and leaves off your beets and discard them, you are missing out. They complement one another in flavor and nutrition. The leaves of the beet plant are delicious raw, when they are especially tender and young, as well as cooked. It seems the parts are meant to be together, not only in the soil, but also on the plate. Beet greens and roots are packed with nutrients, but they are mates with different assets.
Young peas offer a fresh taste of spring
With their bright green hue and the fact that they are one of the first nonleafy vegetables to be harvested in spring, peas provide a refreshing change from a winter's worth of root vegetables. The accompanying recipe triples the pea love by incorporating three kinds: sweet shelled peas, plump sugar snap peas and crunchy snow peas. The soft sweet peas contrast harmoniously, taste and texturewise, with their snow and snap cousins, which can be cut on the diagonal for an extra-sharp look.
Dried mushrooms make for an earthy crust for pork
Whirring dried porcini mushrooms in a food processor turns them into a savory seasoning agent that deepens a dish's flavor and healthfulness by adding a layer of mouthwatering meaty taste (umami) and valuable nutrients such as potassium, B vitamins and protective antioxidants. Pulverized dried mushrooms (porcini or other varieties such as shiitake and chanterelle) can be used the same way you use finely chopped herbs or ground spices: stirred into soups, stews and sauces, for example.
What's Up With the Bacteria in Your Gut?
We’ve known for decades that that the lush collection of bacteria that populate our guts plays a part in digestion. The famous after-effects of bean-eating—tactfully known in the 16th century as “windinesse”— are due to our resident microbes, chomping up an assortment of bean oligosaccharides (short chains of linked sugars) that our own enzymes can’t deal with, and generating in the process an unfortunate excess of bloating gas.
Why Beltsville is the D.C. area’s best cheap-eats destination
Noodles with black bean sauce and beef at Da Rae Won. Da Rae Won Don’t be alarmed. The thunderous thwacking you hear is only chef Hyeong Mu Choe and his team beating the dough into shape. They make the noodles fresh for every bowl ordered, including the lush, sweet and earthy jajangmyeon, a Korean comfort food from Seoul to Annandale. There is no dessert menu, but every check comes with a 2-ounce “frozen dessert,” which goes down like a slushy orange creamsicle.
A cookie exchange shares the taste of family tradition - Greensboro News & Record: Food
A cookie exchange is our kind of party. “You make a little and end up getting a lot,” says Erin Clarke, the executive chef at Casa Luca in Washington. An online service is needed to view this article in its entirety. You need an online service to view this article in its entirety. Choose an online service. Current print subscribers Need an account? Create one now.
In this California city, you'll find barbecue like no other - HDR | Hickory Daily Record : News
The city of Santa Maria on California's Central Coast is commonly known as the state's barbecue capital. Its barbecue always features a beef cut called tri-tip, a triangular-shaped piece of bottom sirloin, cooked over red oak. Or so I thought. An online service is needed to view this article in its entirety. You need an online service to view this article in its entirety. Choose an online service. The following services are print only and offer no digital access Need an account? Create one now.
V is for versatility: A New York chef preaches the possibilities of produce
Michael Anthony wants vegetables to be pigs. OK, not exactly: But as he writes in his new cookbook, he wants home cooks to be able to look at a box of produce and envision a delicious meal just as easily as they could see a pig and envision bacon. With “V is for Vegetables,” the New York City chef aims to help home cooks easily capture the seasonal bounty of markets in their kitchens. This is not a cheffy tome or a vanity project.
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