Food

When Gracelynn Stimson decided she wanted to open 1902 Coffee Co., a coffee stand in Airway Heights, she followed the procedure typical to starting a business. She applied for applicable permits, came up with a business plan, and presented it to her money lender. Where her story veers from the typical is all in the timing: Stimson was a student at Medical Lake High School when she applied for her permit.

This Saturday, the Couer d’Alene Downtown Association will host its eighth Mac & Cheese Festival, and even though general admission and VIP tickets are sold out (totaling 2,000 tickets), there are still pathways to attend.

If you tell me I’m full of beans today, I’ll take it as a compliment. Truth be told, I’ve been full of beans since last September, when the weather started to change. The onset of fall was all the excuse I needed to throttle up the dried bean express. I’ve prepared these three recipes seven times since, including this past weekend, so they’ve been thoroughly tested.

I was at a young, impressionable age when President George H.W. Bush made his somewhat tongue-in-cheek declaration to the press that “I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!”

As I watched fat, fluffy flakes dance outside my window last week during one of the first snowfalls of the year in Washington, I longed to be wrapped in a blanket on my couch, binging my latest television obsession and cradling a bowl of something warm to eat. Instead, I was prone in bed, down bad with some sort of cold (strep throat, I later discovered), watching shows only between the rounds of sleep my body forced upon me to try to recover.

“Are you sure you’re getting enough protein?”

After a few weeks of forcing herself to eat chicken breast and cottage cheese late in the evening despite not being the least bit hungry, Michelle Wilkes, 59, realized that counting protein grams was problematic for her. She started keeping track because she saw many wellness influencers on social media saying women her age needed to eat more protein. But when she found herself heading to the refrigerator solely to hit the “right” number, she knew that tracking grams was hurting her more than it was helping. “Anything that makes me overly focused on every single piece of food I put in my mouth makes me a little nuts,” she said.

Tastea Coffee and Boba Lounge is about big city boba, featuring the newest trends: fruit jams, cheese foams and dirty sodas. Authentic Vietnamese coffee so good customers wish they could order it by the quart (Hint: try it with ube cold foam). Luxe furnishings meant for congregating with friends and snapping photos of your order.

Bibimbap is a riot of flavor: a bowl of rice and vegetables with maybe some meat and maybe an egg and probably a sauce that scratches an itch for umami, sweetness, tang and spice. This recipe for bibimbap is adapted from Seji Hong’s “Korean Made Easy,” a fantastic introduction to homestyle Korean cooking. Hong is the founder of BomBom sauces, a U.K.-based line of savory condiments.

SHINKAMIGOTO, Nagasaki – A town in Nagasaki Prefecture’s Goto Islands in autumn last year set up a new section devoted to the area’s specialty noodles, Goto udon.

Clinkerdagger celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, as it opened in 1974. 

I’ve had my air fryer for about a year and a half now. Back when I was first getting acquainted with the appliance, I used it to make all sorts of things: beautifully browned vegetables, fluffy baked potatoes, extra-crispy chicken wings and even apple hand pies for dessert. But since then, I’ve mostly used it to reheat leftovers and prepare frozen convenience foods, such as French bread pizzas and tater tots.

Here we are, approaching the end of yet another year and the arrival of a new one. I’m glad this is a food column, so I don’t have to recap the passing year’s major news events; people are distressed enough already. Food columns should generally be islands of refuge from all of that, so I’d better stick to discussing food today.

Celebrating the holidays usually involves an abundance of food: cheese platters galore, big Christmas dinners with a centerpiece of turkey or ham or Hanukkah parties overflowing with latkes, and of course piles of cookies, cakes and other desserts.

As we approach the new year, here are three top-notch sparkling wines primed to make your new year bubbly and full of lots of cheer.

Kevin Pereira is hoping the third time’s the charm.

Fresh off the heels of one holiday feast, now we’re going all out baking cookies and preparing to make another spread for Christmas dinner. For the cooks and home entertainers among us, the act of feeding our loved ones and celebrating the joys of the season can be tiring. So once you’ve baked up this year’s holiday ham and stored the leftovers in the fridge, keep things simple the next day with this quick and easy stir-fry for lunch or dinner. (Or breakfast – who am I to limit when this can be eaten?)