Kathy Shultz started coming to DeLaurenti 50 years ago. She’d grown up on the east side of the state, and when she got married, she figured they’d move back. Her husband, a Seattle-born guy, said, “Oh no!” She missed the seasons. Someone advised her to find something that she loved and make it her own.

Mehdi Boujrada went to Morocco last October with a plan. Villa Jerada was turning 15, and after years of working with Moroccan producers he wanted an oil that came from the place, the people, and the traditions he grew up with. He brought samples to an old friend who farms olives in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains and asked him to make an oil like them.

For years, our deli manager and buyer, Elyse Hoang, drove thirty-five minutes to Phinney Ridge for English muffins. Not for loaves or pastries — for English muffins, the thing most of us grab at the supermarket without thinking. That’s the first thing to know about Ben’s Bread: they make an English muffin worth the drive. […]

On a cool morning in early February, Tyler Wilbourne changed into sterile whites in a small creamery outside the town of Herencia, in the heart of La Mancha. Hundreds of wheels of Manchego sat aging in rooms nearby. Four cheesemakers were already at work. Within minutes, he would be too, flipping wheels by hand, packing curds […]

Before irrigation turned Eastern Washington into the country’s orchard, the San Juan Islands shipped fruit across the West. The industry vanished, but the trees kept going. Plum, pear, quince, and apple trees planted more than a century ago still bud and bloom and drop fruit into Orcas Island valleys every year.  Audra Lawlor cooks that […]

Ginger Suhey had three sons playing Penn State football in the 1970s. One of them, Matt, went on to the Chicago Bears. On game days she’d have thirty fans at the house, and she worked out a pepper recipe to put on cheese and crackers or anything off the grill. They became a thing in the PA and PSU […]