I inherited the whip-up-something-out-of-nothing gene from my mother, a talent for creating ingenious meals out of necessity. We grew up in a woodsy, secluded neighborhood in Minnesota, and my father drove our only car to work. That meant Mom had no way to get to the supermarket during the week and had to improvise. ...more

November 11, 2009

I've had a more-than-ordinary itch to travel the past couple of weeks. Several friends recently returned from faraway places, and their reports made me pea-green with envy. All I've gotten are stories and photos of things such as fried sardines and stuffed mussels prepared in Istanbul, Qingdao beer downed in China and sweet Digby scallops devoured in Nova Scotia. Needing a tug out of my pity party, I thought about recipe roulette. It's a game I play on occasion, when I'm craving something adventurous for dinner. Sometimes it takes me to faraway places. ...more

October 21, 2009

Great gastronomic journey: Eating our way through seven major Orlando attractions to provide a primer on where to find the tastiest offerings. ...more

November 7, 2008

When I think of eating out, the first question that comes to my mind isn't "Where should we go?" It's "Can we afford it?" ...more

October 15, 2008

Florida and Alabama have long contended that Lake Lanier was part of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint rivers system from the get-go, a critical part and as such should be treated as if jointly owned by the stakeholders in the system, in the case at the extreme southern end of the system, the seafood industry. ...more

October 5, 2008

Georgia received another setback Tuesday in its water feud with Alabama and Florida as a judge said he must decide whether the Atlanta region has authority to continue using Lake Lanier as its main water source. ...more

August 13, 2008

For those who enjoy a classic Florida fish fry, it's time to think small. About the only species still abundant enough to allow for heavy harvest is freshwater panfish, but the good news is the state allows you to load the cooler with these little guys. The limit is 50 per day, in any combination of bluegills, shellcrackers, warmouth and sunfish. ...more

July 16, 2008

Tat-tat-taaaat-tat-tat-taaaat-tat! That, my friends, is the beautiful sing-song sound of chef Martin Yan's cleaver as he chops bok choy. In fact, everything about Martin is musical, from the lyrical harmony of his Chinese accent (yes, it's real - I asked) to the way he rhythmically pulses the food processor. Brrrrrr ... brr ...brr ...brrrrr. ...more

May 27, 2008

Regarding 'Crist: Slow Reservoirs Will Hurt N. Florida' (Metro, Oct. 26): Now our governor is asking our president not to allow Georgia to keep its water in Georgia for their residents. ...more

October 29, 2007

In one of the earliest hints of 'modern' living, humans 164,000 years ago put on primitive makeup and hit the seashore for mussels to steam, new archaeological finds show. ...more

October 18, 2007