Tag Archives: food

duke’s mayonnaise is really no longer duke’s.

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How would you like to get mayonnaise that looks like this?

Well, I did today.

I went to order off the Duke’s website and the website sent me to Amazon. I can no longer order directly any longer, apparently.

So I ordered from the Duke’s store on Amazon. I ordered mayonnaise. I can’t even tell you how disgusting it was when it arrived today.

It’s so disgusting. Truly gross.

And this I think will be the last time that I ever purchase Duke’s mayonnaise and I have been buying it for years and it was my favorite until it arrived today and I thought I would vomit because it was just all like clear yellowy oil.

There was no mayonnaise part to it and it was not beyond expiration and how the Duke’s store thought that was OK to package and send escapes me. It was one of those normal size jars. I guess like 30 ounces or something.

I used to order from the Duke’s website. Why? Because if you ordered directly from them, you also had access to the other things they sold, which included some wonderful mustard as well as flavored mayonnaise or mayonnaise made with avocado oil or light mayonnaise. Basically here on the East Coast, you’re lucky if the grocery store will actually consistently have the mayonnaise in stock. The other products don’t appear in this area. And I love their mustards as a matter of fact, or I did.

http://www.dukesmayo.com

I couldn’t believe I was shipped something like that so I Googled Duke’s. And guess what it was sold.

It had been under the flag of Sauer Brands out of Richmond, VA. But apparently in 2025 it got a new corporate daddy. And the new corporate daddy is a multinational conglomerate called Advent International.

Sauer Brands completes acquisition by Advent

RICHMOND, VA, February 19, 2025 – Sauer Brands Inc. (the “Company”), a scaled platform of leading condiments and seasonings brands, today announced the completion of its previously announced transaction in which Advent International (“Advent”), a leading global private equity investor, has acquired Sauer Brands from Falfurrias Capital Partners (“Falfurrias”). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“We are thrilled to welcome Sauer Brands into our portfolio and build upon the success the Company has already achieved to date,” said Tricia Glynn, a Managing Partner at Advent. “Our aspirations are to enable even more consumers to discover and fall in love with Sauer’s brands, including Duke’s Mayo, Mateo’s Gourmet Salsa and Kernel Season’s.”

Well, isn’t that interesting. I’m guessing now there will be multiple products. I will not be purchasing anymore because they’re under this corporate umbrella. I also did like Mateo’s Gourmet Salsa. But given this is how the mayonnaise looks from Duke’s that’s now not really Duke’s in my humble opinion.

Unless something changes where Advent is involved, l will not purchase any product associated with them.

https://www.adventinternational.com/sectors/consumer/

Barftastic is not my jam.

Bye Duke’s

all day ham and bean soup

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People seem to have their soup memories from growing up. I have a friend whose soup memories are chicken soup. A lot of mine involve ham and bean soup.

My late father was the soup maker growing up. My mother will tell you it was her, but it really wasn’t. Every winter he would make a ham and bean soup. It would have cabbage, ham, beans, sometimes he would even dice up a hard, Italian salami, and vegetables.

When my vegetable box came this week, there was a beautiful cabbage in it. I realized from my recent pork share order that I had a big smoked ham hock in the freezer. I also had some leftover ham that I had frozen when we had not eaten all of a ham for just this purpose.

Yesterday I started with the dried beans. I boiled water and poured it over the beans and a big mixing bowl with some herbs and spices and salt. I left the beans to soak overnight and this morning I began the soup.

First I sautéed garlic, onion, celery, and the ham hock and ham. Then I added, cut up baby carrots because that’s what I had in the refrigerator. After that had all cooked together for a few minutes I poured in the liquid the dried beans were soaking in. I also added a 14 ounce can of crushed tomatoes. (Mutti, my favorite tomato brand.)

After that cooked together for a bit, I added a container of bone broth, the cabbage I had gotten in my vegetable box all diced up, and water. Note when you dice the cabbage small for a soup it’s sort of melts away and it’s not obtrusive.

To this, I added herbs. I still have sage and thyme growing in some of the pots in my garden, believe it or not. I also added some Herbes de Provence, and a couple dashes of New Mexico chili powder. I also added a salt free pepper blend that I use called Pennsylvania pepper.

And two cheese rinds. I can’t forget that! I save them in little baggies in the freezer for sauces and soups, and things like macaroni and cheese.

I brought the soup up to a boil, then I turned it down to just above a simmer, and just kept checking on it throughout the day and giving it a stir. I did not do it with the lid completely off because I wanted the beans to cook properly. I used one of my little pot lid risers and had the lid on but up a smidge.

The soup because it has cooked low and slow all day has thickened and reduced and melded together beautifully.

You know you don’t really necessarily need a specific recipe for a lot of these soups. It’s what you have on hand.

Happy souping!

dear recipe philly, sometimes the timing in life is just not right

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What some of the people that spend so much time criticizing me don’t realize is I love to cook. I also love to garden, which is of course why I have a separate gardening blog.

A while back a friend sent me a link to a website. It was for something called Recipe Philly.

So on a complete whim, I submitted the pasta sauce recipe taught to me by my great aunts and my paternal grandmother. It’s mostly their recipe, but I tweaked it and wrote it down.

I know that this sauce recipe is good enough to compete with. I’ve actually had people who are professional chefs, and in the restaurant industry tell me so over the years. I also just love the idea of the sauce I learned to make as well as gnocchi in a kitchen at 11th and Ritner when I was a little girl, could be shared with a broader audience.

I still have very distinct memories of the big ceramic top kitchen table that used to hold 8 or 10 of us at one time being cleared for first chopping up vegetables and what not going into the sauce, and then as a workstation to make the gnocchi.

The gnocchi is also another recipe that I finally wrote down because I was taught how to make it by feel. You could just feel when the dough was right.

When my father’s mother would sometimes babysit us when we were in high school and my parents were traveling for my father’s job at the time, I would have these memories of Saturday mornings, and even Sunday mornings, waking up to the mingled smell of fresh coffee and garlic and onion Starting to cook in the bottom of a Dutch oven for sauce.

It was these memories that I was all excited to bring to this competition. And I’m hardly a reality show person. But it was because this was really kind of a cooking thing I was interested. Finally, I’m at a place in my life where I have the time to do something like that.

But life throws you curveballs. I was interviewed on a zoom submitted my application and invited to compete tomorrow in Philadelphia but at the same time this was happening, I have a dog who developed cancer. And the reality of life and the responsibility to my pet means I can’t leave her for 8 or 10 hours right now.

So this morning, I had to decline. I had my recipe ready. I had my photos. I had my recipe card. They want it filled out done and a copy of my application. I sent the producers who gave up their valuable time for me an email apologizing. I didn’t want to just not show up that would be rude and disrespectful of their time and energy into this project which I think is a fun as well as cool idea.

If my recipe had been chosen, it would’ve been featured in this brand new restaurant opening in Philadelphia. If my recipe had been chosen, I think it would’ve amused the ghosts of my ancestors. This recipe was obviously taught to my great aunts and my grandmother by their mother, who immigrated to this country with her husband their father has a very young woman for a better life. This recipe is part of the DNA of my American story because we are a country of immigrants.

Those people, who would’ve been my late father’s maternal grandparents came here for a better life. If they hadn’t existed, the future generations of which I am part of the current present generation never would have existed.

So for the time being, I don’t get my home cook moment, but for the love of my dog, I just can’t do it. And I really wanted to. But sometimes the timing in life and being a grown-up and being a responsible pet owner have to come first.

If these people at Recipe Philly would ever want to talk to me after today about my recipe and competing when they actually film, I would welcome that opportunity. But sadly, I know that’s not how the process works, so it’s just not my time.

A girl can dream though…..

matine’s café was merveilleux!

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My friend and I had been trying to get into Matine’s Café in Devon for months. There were either lines out the door to get in, or you simply could not get a space in the parking lot.

The parking lot is an odd configuration, which is not the fault of the café, but I imagine the owner is making a tidy rent off of these people, and they could do better with the parking lot.

This place was so worth the wait to get in . We both couldn’t remember the last time we had so enjoyed lunch out. We were there for quite a while and just took our time and because it was the last week in August it was a steady but not impossible flow of people in and out.

We ate inside, which was less crowded than outside. They have a lovely outside dining area and that was completely full.

Among other things, we had an actual French woman wait on us. And that made the experience even more fun.

When you walk in the building is deceptively small compared to when you go inside. I think it would be a marvelous place to reserve seating for a luncheon if they did that. This café is spotlessly clean, including the ladies room.

When you are inside, it reminds you of an actual French or European Café. It is light and airy and old style marble top café tables. The tables are so authentic, that I have to wonder if they were purchased in France and shipped over.

They have a wonderful café menu that I imagine might have seasonal adjustments. One of the things I love best is the coffee and tea and the tea, when you are ordering an iced tea, is a pour over so the tea is super fresh and that makes all the difference in iced tea in my opinion. They use loose tea, which is also my preference at home. My friend had I think it was a mango peach iced tea, and I had the Ceylon gold. Ceylon gold is a loose tea I enjoy at home. It is flavorful, but not too acidic nor does it get too dark.

My friend had an artichoke quiche that was beautiful looking. I had the smoked salmon tartine. she loved her quiche and one thing I loved about my cartoon other than how fresh it was and how good quality of smoked salmon it was that they used, was the Tzaziki sauce they used on it. And it also had baby fresh arugula on top. I adore arugula.

Tzaziki is something you think of in Greek cuisine which is Greek yogurt, cucumber, dill, mint, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. On the Tartine that I had, it was perfect.

Both of us opted for gazpacho on the side. I am picky about gazpacho, and quite frankly, I rarely order it out because I make my late mother-in-law’s Andalusian version of gazpacho and it’s just pretty much my favorite. Their gazpacho is the best I’ve had outside of my own kitchen, ever. To me there’s also is reminiscent of an Andalusian gazpacho, and interestingly like me, they serve it with crumpled feta on top. I never knew this was a thing. I literally tried it one time with my own gazpacho because I just happened to have some in the refrigerator and I thought the tastes would go well together. Also, a lot of restaurants think they can get away with gazpacho made from canned tomatoes, and the taste is just not the same. Matine’s is fresh and there is a slight citrus accent as well.

We also sampled their cheese plate, which they described as being enough for two people, it could have fed more. It was a great selection of cheeses, including a magnificent brie, and we took leftovers home. What I liked about the cheese plate as it was simple and pretty to look at. It wasn’t fussy.

The plates they use for our lunch were a pretty matte blue ceramic disc.

Because it was a belated birthday lunch, we split a dessert crêpe made with Nutella. And although Nutella is an Italian product, ironically the first time I ever had it was in France when I was a teenager.

While we were there, I ran into a friend who was also enjoying a belated birthday lunch with one of her friends!

After we finished eating, we shopped in their little market inside the store. I brought home croissants and a little bread boule, along with some French pantry items like Marie-Antoinette Tea and a fabulous Dijon mustard, as well as Roger & Gallet Fleur de Figuer Eau Parfumée.

Oh, and they have a Little Free French library outside!

We are very excited to have been able to get in and have the time to appreciate this place properly. We look forward to going back again, and I have a feeling it will become a new spot for us. They list the address is Wayne, but it’s really Devon to me because it is just before the Whole Foods if you are headed west and just after the Whole Foods if you are headed east on Lancaster Avenue.

https://www.matinescafe.com/

Matine’s is located at 757 Lancaster Avenue, Wayne, PA and they are open seven days a week 8 AM to 5 PM.

You can now book a table via a reservation at resy (Click here.)

I will note because it’s important, I was not compensated for this post in any way, shape, or form. I did not seek compensation for this post in any way shape or form. I was simply a normal customer, and I loved the experience and the food and will be back again.

À bientôt!

favolosa!

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I have been a customer of Mangia Famiglia! for a few years now. Christine Familetti is a mad talented Italian cook. Usually I just buy her homemade Italian sausage (which tastes like 9th Street AKA the Italian Market), but this time on a whim I ordered her bake at home Stromboli .

Favolosa!

Full disclosure: I am not usually a Stromboli fan, my husband likes them. But Christine’s have made me a believer…at least of her Stromboli.

https://mangiafamiglia.com/

They were really good and really fresh! From freezer to oven, just followed the instructions on the package.

I am not compensated for writing about this- I am a customer and glad they are out there!

#shoplocal

Home

roasted curried squash soup

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I am supposed to be sitting still for five days. I had a rather large area on the back of my head go under the little scalpels of a Mohs surgery. But I’m not lifting anything, and I do have to move around my house some, so soup it was.

I don’t know what it is about fall, but once fall is here, it’s like you have this seasonal clock within you that wants to make soup. This week it’s roasted curried squash soup.

The first steps are making the broth and roasting the squash. Then I let everything cool down and come blend it all together. It’s acorn squash, delicata squash, and butternut squash. I’ve been getting a lot of squash in my veg box from Lancaster and my friend gave me some.

I made my own bone broth once again. I’m not supposed to lift really heavy things so I didn’t do it in my large Instant Pot, which is heavy. I did it the old-school way in my soup pot.

The broth was sweet onions, a big bunch of celery, carrots, bones from a roast chicken, and chicken necks and gizzards. I’ve told my readers before that I save chicken carcasses, plus the necks and gizzards in the freezer for just these occasions.

The squash was roasted on salt and spices in a 400° oven drizzled with olive oil. I used curry powder, salt, pepper, Za’atar. I used the same seasoning preparing the broth only I added a little cumin and a little Shawarma seasoning.

After the broth was ready and squash roasted I let everything cool down to room temperature. I strained the broth, tossing the bones but keeping the carrots and onions and celery. I scooped the roasted squash out of their skins and added to the broth pot along with the broth vegetables. Next I blended everything together with my immersion blender and warmed the soup slowly and incorporated a cup of half and half. It would also work with coconut milk or you could eat it without the additional creamy component.

I will serve tomorrow for dinner.

Bon appétit 😊

semi-homemade cream of celery soup.

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So what do you do when you end up with two giant heads of celery less than a week? You make soup. I went through recipes for cream of celery soup and I didn’t really want something that delicate. I wanted something with a little bit of flavor, so I came up with my version. Yes, wing it soup.

I saved some of my celery for the salmon cakes I’m making on Friday, but the rest of it got a rough chop and tossed into one of my soup pots with about 3 tablespoons of butter, four cloves of garlic, also chopped, and rough chopped onions. I also added salt, thyme, a couple of bay leaves, and 1/3 cup of water. I put the lid on the pot and let the vegetables cook down a few minutes.

Normally cream of celery soup calls for leeks but when I went to Aldi this week they didn’t have any, so I used red onions and yellow onions specifically are used one big red onion and two regular yellow onions.

To the onions and garlic and celery, I next added two chopped up yellow Yukon Gold potatoes I had. I also peeled and chopped small a bunch of parsnips that arrived in my vegetable box from Lancaster this week. We use Doorstep Dairy if you’re interested and are in their delivery area.

I let all the vegetables kind of meld together and cooked down about another 15 minutes. Then I used a box and a half of prepackaged chicken stock. Each box is 32 ounces so in total, I added 48 ounces of chicken stock. Two that I added a dash of Herbes de Provence. I brought it all up to a boil, then reduced to low and covered, and let everything cook.

When the parsnips and potatoes were both soft, I removed the bay leaves, and I took out my Cuisinart hand blender and puréed everything. I then let it all cook down more. I did this part of the cooking on low heat, and I stirred fairly often, so nothing stuck to the bottom of the pan. This was probably about another 40 minutes.

Then I added half a cup of half-and-half, and a dash of curry powder. Not a spicy curry powder just Keen’s Traditional Curry Powder. I know that sounds weird to add, but it just struck me that it would make a good addition to the flavor profile and I was right. I love curry so I do add curry powders to a lot of recipes.

I then use my hand blender once again, and emulsified everything a little more. I served the soup with Italian breadsticks. I have always loved breadsticks, and people always forget about them.

Now you have my semi homemade recipe for cream of celery soup. I will note I rarely use heavy cream when I do a cream based soup because I don’t like the extra thick and heavy, which means I will use half-and-half, canned unsweetened coconut milk, or even buttermilk. I think this recipe could be done with any of the above, but I just happen to have half-and-half in, so that’s what I used.

I know people don’t like it when I say a dash of this or a dash of that, but it really just is depending on what your taste level is and if you’re unsure of some thing you can always add a little less at first because you can always add a little more later.

Good soup, even semi-homemade, does take a little bit of time, but the thing about soup is you can cook it while you’re doing other things. So if you work from home it doesn’t really interfere with life.

I have been working really hard to try to use and not be wasteful with food. That even includes with leftovers. Like a pasta sauce and ricotta that was the leftover last week became baked ziti.

Food prices are crazy and what’s even nuttier are what the stores are out of from week to week and it’s not even Covid anymore. And with high food prices, it doesn’t mean you can’t eat well, it just means sometimes you have to be a little more inventive and use what you have versus buying lots of new things. I have been shopping more at places like Aldi, because they have great prices and their products are not bad.

Anyway, this is an easy enough soup to make, so I thought I would share it with you, because it did turn out to be quite delicious. I will probably have more for lunch today since it’s damp and rainy.

it’s november, so of course we need soup…french onion mushroom soup….

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I have a slight obsession with French Onion Soup. I’ve written about it before and my quest to find and develop a recipe I really liked and I think that was in 2015. I have been fiddling and fiddling with the way I make it, and I think this is the best batch so far.

My friend Karen‘s mother made the best French Onion Soup I’ve ever had anywhere. It was even better than the H.A. Winston soup that we all loved growing up. But I’ve kind of developed my own now which isn’t bad if I do say so myself. But I definitely have a memory of being in Karen‘s mother’s kitchen when she had that soup cooking. The aroma and the fragrance of it just filled the room.

I start my soup the day before with roasting my beef bones in the oven for beef stock. Then I throw everything into a stockpot with wine, water, and a 32 oz. container of low salt beef broth. To that I had a couple of carrots, celery or Celeriac (celery root), onion, fresh herbs, and that’s how I make my beef broth. This time I made my beef bone broth with Celeriac, because that is what I had. I cook this for a few hours. I let it simmer and cook down and condense. If I do it in the instant pot it takes a lot less time for the broth component.

I prepare the beef bone broth the day before because I like to fish the bones out of the broth and dispose of them, and then put the broth in the refrigerator overnight because then as you can see from the photo I shared above, I can skim the fat off the top very easily. This bone broth I made this time was truly gorgeous. This morning it was totally gelatinous like a consommé. That’s what you want.

Also, people always ask me how many beef bones I use. Honestly? It varies and this time I had 10 beef bones.

I line a big sheet pan with aluminum foil. Then I sprinkle them with just a smidge of olive oil and add salt pepper, Herbes de Provence, and garlic. When I roast them I do it at a 375° oven. I just keep an eye on the oven I think they were roasted through in about 35 to 40 minutes. Then I just turned the oven off and let everything cool down a bit before I bring them out of the oven and throw them into the stockpot as indicated above.

These bones were actually a surprise I did not know I still had in the bottom of our chest freezer they had come with a meat order from our local butcher, Worrell’s. Truthfully, you really do have to go to a local farmers market meat purveyor, or a local butcher shop to get good bones. And ask before you want to make the soup, because it’s not like the good old days and they don’t always have the bones.

The next day I start with caramelizing my onions, and today’s onions are the last I will ever get at Pete’s Produce Farm in Westtown which makes me sad. I use a combination of red and white onions. I add a little salt, a couple of tablespoons of butter, and a couple of dashes of balsamic vinegar to the bottom of the pot. You do want to caramelize your onions, but pay attention or they will burn. I almost killed them today because I was on the phone when I was doing this.

I also add mushrooms now to my recipe and that is pretty much because my husband loves mushrooms. The mushrooms, Cremini, came from Pete’s as well. I am so going to miss the produce and that store because these mushrooms were the prettiest I’ve had all year to cook with. But I have to admit that adding mushrooms especially this kind to soup add another layer of flavor that is just wonderful.

When I’m putting it all together after the onions have cooked down and caramelized, if I feel there is not enough liquid, then I will use a little additional bone broth or Better Than Bouillon to help it along. And you also cannot forget your healthy dash of Flavor Master’s Gravy Master. Why? Because that is something they put in the H.A. Winston soup when they were making it.

Today I did add an 8 ounce container additionally of bone broth. I also added a good half a bottle of wine

I wish I had a more exact and proportionate recipe written down, but I don’t a lot of times I cook things by the way I think they feel.

I will serve my French onion soup in a few minutes with a little shredded Gruyère on top but I don’t do the whole thing with the big hunk of bread and put it in the broiler. That’s too much work for me. The soup is work enough on its own. Besides it’s something I always eat around French onion soup when I get it at a restaurant, anyway.

We are also having an arugula and spinach salad with elite seasoning tomato and a honey mustard vinaigrette.

Bon appétit 👩‍🍳

different slaw

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My vegetable box today had a couple things I was not sure would go together, but actually have quite nicely!

I had some beautiful young fresh red cabbage, and a couple of heads of fresh fennel. So I thought what could I do with them? Then I thought why not a kind of coleslaw? I’m out of carrots so I could use the fennel in place of the carrots.

Well it worked! I also added half of a red onion and a couple of apples.

Here’s what I did:

1. Grate a small to medium size head of red cabbage.

2. Clean a large fennel bulb and grate. Or two smaller bulbs. Save some of the frilly green frond tops for the dressing .

3. Grate 1/2 of a red onion,

4. Grate 2 medium apples with skin ON.

Toss everything together that you have grated into a bowl. Add a little salt to taste. I like Crazy Jane’s Mixed Up Salt.

In a separate little bowl whisk together a little handful of the fennel fronds minced, a quarter cup of mayonnaise, 4 tablespoons of maple syrup, 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard, three or 4 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.

Add the dressing to the grated everything bowl and mix together. Put it into the refrigerator to chill up and then taste again before serving to see if you need to adjust the salt or pepper.

Enjoy!

tastes of summer

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I had a grandmother who was Pennsylvania German. We called her Mumma. When I think of summer salads I often think of her.

I made homemade coleslaw because my vegetable box this week had a lovely fresh head of cabbage. I minced up the cabbage, grated a couple of carrots, added 1/3 cup minced sweet onion.

Next I made the dressing:

2/3 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons sweet relish
2 tablespoons pickle brine
2 tablespoons distilled cider vinegar
1 teaspoon prepared white horseradish
1 tablespoon sugar

3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

You whisk the dressing together and add the cabbage, carrots, and onion to it and mix it all together. Chill.

The second summer salad I made was a three bean salad. I use whatever cans of 3 different beans I have at the time. This time it was one can cannellini beans, one can pink beans, one can great northern beans.

To the beans I add a diced red onion (or yellow onion depending on what’s in the fridge) and a simple vinaigrette with extra garlic. Salt and pepper to taste, a few tablespoons of minced up fresh dill. Chill.

And that’s it! Enjoy!