Jo Maeder

Author

Savory Smackdown

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Does it ever seem like the Foodie Nation has gone cuckoo? You know, “Sand-blasted Galician shitake-nuanced gluten-free crostini made from stalactite flour grown on the moon.” What created this multi-layered/cultural obsession with food?, I asked Executive Chef Gregory Rollins, sitting next to me at the high-energy “Got to be NC” Competition Dining Series event we were […]

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A Meeting with Maya Angelou and Unexpected Gifts

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I interviewed Maya Angelou for the Greensboro News & Record’s Go Triad arts section in the fall of 2010. She lived in the next town over, Winston-Salem, NC, and was releasing a cookbook for the holidays. I was nervous meeting an icon whose work I had admired greatly for decades, especially after being instructed to only refer […]

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Q&A: Teresa Engebretsen, the Sabbatical Chef, on How to Speak French and Indulge Your Inner Francophile

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Teresa Engebretsen has been teaching French to middle school students at Durham Academy in Durham, NC, for over 30 years. Often she takes her students on field trips to France. Her blog The Sabbatical Chef began when she took a sabbatical from teaching in 2008, lived in Arles, and worked with a French chef. It’s […]

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PISSALADIERE RECIPE – THE QUICK AND EASY (ALYCE) WAY

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Hi. This is Alyce speaking. Or Al-ees, as the French say. I chained Jean-Luc to his computer to write. Also so he can’t see me make my E-Z pissaladiére (or the spelling of easy). Pissala is a fish paste made from sardines and anchovies. I’ve left it out. This is supposed to be quick and easy, […]

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SOCCA!

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Somewhere in my Opposites Attack research of foods popular in the South of France, I read about socca, a flat bread/pancake/crêpe made from chick pea (a.k.a. garbanzo bean) flour. It sounded more like a Latin-American dance than something you would eat. One passage stuck in my head about a man at a big outdoor market […]

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WILD BOAR DAUBE FEAST (PART FOUR) – MORE COOKING & DEVOURING

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When I decided to dive into this challenge with the same naive pluck as Alyce, the heroine in Opposites Attack, I thought what was the worst that could happen? It would be awful, we’d order pizza and drinks lots of French wine. In the end it’s about the company. Fortunately, pizza was never delivered. You’ve […]

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WILD BOAR DAUBE FEAST (PART TWO) – MARINATING

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ALLOW AT LEAST THREE DAYS TO PREPARE THIS MEAL, FOUR EVEN BETTER. A few words about how I came up with this wild boar daube recipe. While writing Opposites Attack, I studied many French cookbooks and let my taste buds guide me as I cooked the recipes in my head. Now, years later, many readers […]

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WILD BOAR DAUBE FEAST (PART ONE) – PROCURING

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In my novel Opposites Attack, our heroine Alyce slays a wild boar in self-defense, has a butcher cut it up and invites over a large group of students from the French school she’s attending for a boar daube (the French version of stew). It’s a turning point for her. While intrepid in many ways, her self-esteem […]

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MY NEW LOVE AFFAIR: LAVENDER (PART 2)

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One thing I’ve learned the hard way at farmers markets is that if you see something you like, grab it. Which is at odds with my “I have to look at everything first” approach. One such Darn It I Missed It moment came when I spied a beautiful lavender wreath at the Hauser Creek Farm stall at […]

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