When the hosts take up your offer to bring something for Thanksgiving, do it Garden State-style with homemade cranberry sauce. This dish is pretty, and almost as easy as opening a can. It also tells a story of New Jersey history, which might be useful table talk at Thanksgiving dinner. Cranberries have grown in New Jersey for centuries. One of the earliest written references is a letter from emigrant Mahon Stacy. Writing to his brother in 1680, Stacy said, "We have from the time called May until Michaelmas a great store of very good wild fruits as strawberries, cranberries and hurtleberries. …

Bread, irresistible bread. On the trail of a local history landmark, I have passed Phil Serrani’s Sanitary Bakery in Orange a dozen times. It was never the moment to stop until recently, when the bread in the window drew me inside. Serrani’s bakery has been in business since 1948.   Indeed, a 1957 calendar is framed on the back wall below a photo of the founder, Phil Serrani. The two windows hold bread and a display of stuffed dogs, a magnet for kids passing by. The windows flank a single door, which leads to a room with glass cookie counters, along one wall.  The back wall has a refrigerator…

Kocafe officially opened its doors for business this Sunday, April 3, with one of the most well-attended ribbon cuttings this Patch editor has seen since she began covering Maplewood two years ago.Perhaps the sunny skies and warm temperatures brought out the crowd. Or maybe it was the buzz surrounding this new cafe and eatery at 1908 Springfield Avenue. Owner Anthony Escribens and his beautiful wife Giannina Consiglieri have created a warm, vibrant and welcoming space (profiled in Patch last week). Besides the striking Peruvian art, Kocafe will be offering WiFi and a menu of flavorful coffee…

For those who don’t know me, I am a very healthy eater. My weakness is food and occasional wine—okay maybe daily wine. So, when the holiday season ended, I was very surprised and disappointed to learn I have gained a few pounds. How could that happen?? I have been exercising like a mad woman five times a week to offset any over eating. As the reality set it, I started to realize as I approach the big 40, just exercising was n ot enough. As I mentioned before, I am a healthy eater—so what gives?? Well, it might be all the food writing I have been doing. In order to write about food, I have to …

Dinnersmith’s proprietor, Mary Smith, is passionate about mealtime. Her business, which moved from Maplewood to Irvington Ave. in late fall, is preparing meals for people who lack time or inclination to cook from scratch. “It’s important,” she says to have dinner as a family or a couple, or to have quality food when dining alone.  The Springfield Ave. location offered customers a chance to assemble their own meals from pre-washed, cut, assembled ingredients. While many locals were regulars, Smith explained that a growing number of customers asked staff to prepare, especially when delivery was…

Updated: Thanks to a reader's suggestion, the menu appears among the photos. Click through to the final three photos to see the Puerto Vallarta menu.  The wait is over; South Orange’s new restaurant is open. Puerto Vallarta, located at 65 South Orange Ave., with entrances from the Taylor Place parking lot, offers Mexican food by way of chef and owner Mario Martinez. The restaurant opened Monday, with plans for a grand opening later in the winter.  A native of Guadalajara, Martinez is eager to bring a taste of his homeland to the community. “We’re a new flavor for South Orange,” he explains. …

Four months young with a website that is just days old, La Vera Pizza & Pasta is on a roll. The bright restaurant, freshly-decorated in red, green and white, has a large flat-screen television and oversized photos of London. It is accessible, with a ramp and grab rail at the entrance. And, to judge from its bustling lunch and dinner-time crowds, it’s a popular spot.  La Vera, which means “the real thing,” describes itself as a “casual Italian eatery.” Its offerings go well beyond pizza, though there’s a steady demand for slices and pies.  Paninis and entrees as ambitious as Veal Sorrentino …

Now that the holidays are over and the New Year is approaching, how do you plan to start 2011? I bet you thought I was going to ask you what your New Year resolutions are going to be. No, instead I'm suggesting a meal of Hoppin' John,a dish often served in the South on New Year's Day. It is eaten to kick off a great year and ring in lots of good luck. I like the sound of that! Hoppin' John is combination of rice and black eyed peas cooked together with some kind of a pork product like a ham hock, spicy sausages. The tradition is American but has African/French/Caribbean roots. The legend …

Holiday time invokes thoughts of family and friends getting together eating delicious foods and drinking yummy cocktails.  The problem is that someone has to host the warm evening and in order to have a stress-free, successful party, you have work your little bum off a few days before the event. All the hard work is worth it when you are able to drink a glass of wine, nibble on an appetizer and watch your guests having a wonderful time. The key, according to me, is to be super organized and have a list of things to do before the event. Last year we hosted 20 people for Christmas and I …

Hosting any get together or party can be stressful, especially when it comes to special gatherings or holidays like Thanksgiving. I love and enjoy entertaining our friends and family often. In spite all the work, I find it rewarding and find myself looking forward to more gatherings. Thanksgiving is close to my heart since it is one day we focus solely on food and gather with our loved ones. There is no exchange of gifts or stress of getting to the shopping mall in time to find that perfect something for someone. It is all about enjoying food and each other's company with a glass of wine or …

One of my first jobs was in a tiny town in central Mexico. After a long first week, a fellow teacher proposed a museum outing to nearby Guanajuato.  Yes, claro que si, I'd love to go, I said. I had just been to Mexico City's wax museum and marveled at the near-perfect sculptures of Elvis and Jackie Kennedy. What I found in Guanajuato, instead, was a museum of accidental mummies, a cavern of cholera victims who were mummified by the properties of the soil, then discovered in 1865. Not surprisingly, this is a popular pilgrimage at this time of year, to mark Nov. 2, the Day of the Dead, or All …

My daughter hates accompanying me to the mall. I try not to take her very often but once in a while when she does come with me, I have to motivate her by suggesting a delicious treat at the end of the trip. We would stop over at Brownie Points in the Short Hills mall for a cupcake. One day while my daughter enjoyed a treat, my friend and I noticed another treat displayed in the bakery called 'duffins'. We were told they were a cross between a muffin and a doughnut. The duffin was delicious and we couldn't get enough. Since then, I have made a variety of different kinds of duffins  at home. It…

Normally, if food was served without utensils, on one big plate and on top of the bread, I would complain. This is, of course, how Ethiopian cuisine works, and Lalibela Restaurant is no exception. You don't get a fork, knife, chopsticks or a spork because you use your hands (traditionally your right hand) in combination with injera, a flat spongy bread made from teff flour. Injera has been compared to a sourdough sponge (it carries a pleasantly sour taste), which comes from the water and flour fermenting for days. The bread is thin enough to eat mounds of it, but thick enough to scoop …