In Brava magazine, July 2007
Around the Table
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach


RECIPE

Lemon Verbena with Peaches

“Lemon verbena is amazing!” says Jill of this, her favorite herb of all. “It makes a great tea, and it can be minced into fruit salads or tossed into the bath for a relaxing soak. I just love smelling it while wandering the garden. In tropical climates it’s a bush. It’s a tender perennial, so it needs to ...   more »

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

In Brava magazine June 2007
Around the Table


RECIPE

Pineapple-Cheddar Casserole

“This is one of my family’s favorites,” says Julie. “My daughter, Melyssa, and I make it a lot. It’s wonderful to bring to a potluck – a great side to burgers, hot dogs, barbecue, chicken and pork.  I just love it because it mixes the salty and the sweet together.” Julie notes that any cheddar aged at least one year ...   more »

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine, May 2007
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Strawberry Scones

The other night for dinner, Vanessa Balchen made snapper, and according to her, it was “the best fish I’ve ever made.” So she told the whole world about it.

 “I rubbed it down with a mix of garlic, canola oil, cumin, and smoked paprika and then cooked it in a really hot pan with just a bit of oil,” she announced. She even took an enticing photo of her luscious entree, served on a salad bed of ...   more »

Recipe from Vanessa Balchen, Food Blogger
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, May 2007

“I'm posting a scone recipe monthly. The whole family adores the strawberry scones at Lazy Jane's Cafe and I'm obsessed with recreating them at home,” says Vanessa. This version – her “third iteration,” as she puts it in appropriately geeky terminology – is creatively adapted from Baking With Julia by Julia Child and Dorie Greenspan. “Lazy Jane's scones are denser...   more »

Owner of The Dardanelles is a true “original” who also represents 40 locally owned Madison restaurants
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, April 2007
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Tortilla Dardanelles with Aioli

“Local, independent restaurants are where the flavor is,” says Barbara Wright, president of The Madison Originals, a non-profit association of over 40 restaurant members. “It’s where the cutting edge of regional cuisine is found – where it was born and where it’s preserved.” What makes local eateries so special? “The owner is almost always in the house. There are real   more »

Recipe from Around the Table: Toby's Supper Club
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, March 2007

At first, Roxanne was reluctant to reveal any of the recipes that have been Toby’s secrets for over half a century. When I told her that folks these days think salad dressing is something you buy from a big company at the supermarket, she agreed to share this recipe, a favorite at the club. It’s basic; it’s just...   more »

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine, February 2007
Column: Around the Table

There’s something good cookin’ in the South Park Street area, one of Madison’s most culturally diverse neighborhoods. It’s home to a summertime farmers’ market, a variety of ethnic specialty grocery stores and great eateries offering authentic culinary traditions as far-ranging as Indian, Mexican, Vietnamese – and now, with the mid-2006 opening of Jada’s Soul Food, classic Southern Americana.

 Offering down-home fare like ...   more »

Recipe from Around the Table: Linda Clash of Jada's Soul Food
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine, February 2007
Column: Around the Table

A savory, golden brown crunch through to a tangy, subtly sweet, juicy center: that’s the essential fried green tomato experience. “This recipe was perfected last summer when my craving and quest for fried green tomatoes led me to preparing them almost every day,” Linda says. “These will definitely be on Jada’s menu this summer!”

With the right combination of   more »

Combining a passion for travel and a love of all things gourmet, Joan Peterson transforms travel for foodies abroad.
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine, January 2007
Column: Around the Table

With her Ph.D. in zoology and post-doctoral degrees in molecular biology and biochemistry, Joan Peterson was enjoying a successful science career at the UW-Madison. She left it all behind to write books about how to eat well abroad.

After one hard-earned overseas vacation meal too many in ...   more »

Coconut upside-down treats
Recipe from Around the Table: Eat Smart travel guide series
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, December 2006

This Brazilian favorite is “like a rich, satisfying macaroon,” says Joan, “with rich, golden yellow tops.” Included in her first volume. Eat Smart in Brazil, it’s a delicious fusion of African cookery with the European sweet tooth. In Brazil’s colonial days “the young girls of the plantation mansions, or casas grandes, were ...   more »

How bakery buff Angela Anderson rescued New Glarus’s delicious legacy
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava magazine, December 2006

In 2004, re-opening the New Glarus Bakery was a dream come true for Angela Anderson, its new owner. But something was missing – something critical to restoring the true spirit of the old bakery.

It was the old notebook. Where was the New Glarus Bakery without it?

Filled with irreplaceable Old World recipes for breads and ...   more »

Recipe from Around the Table: New Glarus Bakery
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine, December 2006

Literally translated as “pepper nut,” these walnut-shaped treats are named after the Pfefferlanden – “Pepper Lands” – an old German nickname for the spice-rich Far East. “The dough is very thick and dark, and has a spicy taste of cloves, cinnamon and anise,” says bakery owner Angela Anderson, who generously shares here the bakery’s century-old recipe. “It’s difficult ...   more »

Once an at-home mom, Kathy Hughes has become president of a thriving business – and one of Madison’s foremost fishwives
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine (formerly ANEW), November 2006
Column: Around the Table

Recipe: Day-Boat Scallops with Citrus Beurre Blanc

When you’ve spent most of your adult life as an at-home mom, what do you do after your three children grow up and your husband retires? Do you (a) retire to the suburbs of Miami and learn to play canasta...   more »

Recipe from Around the Table: Kathy Hughes of Hughes Seafood
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Brava Magazine (formerly ANEW), November 2006


 If you’ve ever had scallops that were mushy, chalky white and flavorless, chances are they spent up to 10 days on a board a fishing boat, soaking in phosphate preservative. Day-boat scallop fishers, by contrast, bring in the tasty bivalves daily, as their name suggests. Kathy recommends serving these fresh beauties with roasted asparagus ...   more »

Fall's favorite treat complete with a great recipe
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

In ANEW Magazine, October 2006
Column: Around the Table


You can often find Vivian Green at the center of a crowd, enthralling eager shoppers with information about the wares that fill her farm market stall: apples. Lots and lots of kinds of apples, bins of fruit ranging from deep red to green to rosy   more »

Renowned chef and cookbook author brings her vegetable love to Madison’s Food For Thought Festival
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

In ANEW Magazine, September 2006
Column: Around the Table

Ah, food, glorious food. The flavor! The aroma! The justice!

Justice? What’s that got to do with food?

A lot, in a world teeming with side-by-side surplus and famine, where a few agribusinesses boom while thousands of family farms go under, where most of what we spend on food goes not to farmers but to ...   more »

A growing group of folks dare to say that more might just be better
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

It’s an integral part of every cell in your body; embedded in each one’s membrane, it quite literally keeps you together. Over a remarkably wide range of temperature, it keeps your cells firm enough that they don’t soften into mush, yet supple enough not to crystallize. It’s also a vital ingredient in cell manufacture and repair,

This ...   more »

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
Column: Steal This Recipe
Unpublished (Until I can find someone to go for the Steal This Recipe concept)

How long is a sprig of thyme, and how much to use if you only have dried? How much salt is in a pinch? Where, exactly, is the liquid supposed to come up to relative to the line on your thick glass measuring cup, and what angle should you be looking at it ...   more »

A tasty trip through Hispanic holiday foods
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Madison Magazine, December 2006
Recipes and shopping tips follow this article
Photo: Martha Busse

When Melania Alvarez tells me how to make cochinita pibil, a Christmas dish from her native Mexico, she gets excited just talking about it. “Oh, my mouth is watering!” she exclaims. She talks me through each step, and calls back a couple of times with some tips she forgot.

I must sound   more »

An unconventional business, Organic Valley Family of Farms has grown into a national leader in the organic movement.
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Corporate Report Wisconsin, October 2003
Profile: George Siemon, Organic Valley's CEO

Needle-tart, refreshing, sweet: a delicate, complex play of juicy flavors bursts onto my tongue with startling directness, as if I’d pierced the skin of a just-picked fruit. My eyes widen. It’s organic grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed and packed into 1/2 ...   more »

Eco-aware cheese making in America’s dairyland
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Madison Magazine, March 2002
Column: Table Talk

“To make great cheese, you’ve got to have great milk. And great milk does not come from factory farms,” says Willi Lehner, a maker of fine cheeses in Dane County. A Dane County Farmers’ Market favorite since 1988 (in the off season, it’s available at Star Liquor or by calling 767-2875), Lehner’s Bleu Mont Dairy is one ...   more »

Master of hospitality Craig Culver serves up the scoop on his dining niche and growing franchise chain
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Corporate Report Wisconsin, June 2001

All is gold shovels, plaques and photographers at the ceremonial groundbreaking of the Culver’s restaurant in Winona, Minnesota, a town wedged on the narrow plain between the west bank of the Mississippi River and a set of craggy peaks still swathed in snow this sunny March day. A matched set of...   more »

by Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Madison Magazine, April 2001
Column: Tidbits
Photo: California Avocado Commission

Guacamole, that spicy green dip, gets its name from the Mexican-Spanish mole, meaning a sauce or mixture, plus ahuacatl, the Aztec word for “testicle” as well as for “avocado.” This synonym doubtless arose from observation of the fruit’s shape and wrinkly skin. If the size seems off, consider that in the 15th and 16th centuries, Aztec warriors conquered surrounding lands to build the largest empire in the history of the North American continent.

For best results making tasty guacamole, use a very ripe avocado.   more »

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Racine County Visitor Guide, 2001

What original Racine creation is tender, feather-light flaky, and totally scrumptious? It’s kringle, Racine’s signature ethnic dish--a local treasure par excellence.

The kringle style of Danish pastry--an oval ring, generously filled and iced--was developed by Danish-American bakers in Racine. Like croissant, its culinary cousin, traditional Danish pastry is made by repeatedly rolling out a piece of dough, coating it with butter, folding it, and then ...   more »

How about a bobbing gobbler this Thanksgiving?
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Madison Magazone, November 2000
Column: Table Talk

When I first heard about deep-fried whole turkey, it sounded like a joke. Outrageous. You’d need an enormous pot! You’d need gallons of oil! Really hot oil--it would be dangerous! But, I was told, I’d never eat a juicier, more perfectly cooked turkey, and the skin would be out-of-this-world crispy good.

So I had to...   more »

Dreamy when it's steamy
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In M, the magazine of Isthmus Newspaper, Summer 2000

Local. Seasonal. It's a great approach to buying fruits and veggies, so why quaff the same corporate brew year round? This is Wisconsin. Take advantage.

    In the nineteenth century, beers varying with the seasons and made with locally grown hops and grains were on tap in virtually every town and hamlet in Wisconsin. The state boasted over ...   more »

Around the world in Madison: Lao Laan-Xang, Sole e Sapori, and Nadia's
By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach
In Isthmus Annual Dining Guide, 2000

For a mid-sized city in the heart of the Midwest, Madison is lucky when it comes to dining out--and it’s not just because we have so many diverse restaurants serving dishes from all around the globe. It’s the exuberance and creativity of the people who run them. In bringing us their foods, they ...   more »