Chicago Hamburger Company vs. Boomer’s Sweet Home Chicago This week we went to two Chicago-style restaurants to compare sliders, those adorable mini burgers that are so small they slide down your throat. Why Chicago? It’s not completely clear but apparently Walter Anderson, the founder of White Castle, wanted burgers to be…
Strictly speaking, this is not a “Monday Night” dish but a “Sunday Morning” one. We made it for breakfast over the weekend but it was so good, we say you could easily talk yourself into having it as part of an easy-breezy weeknight dinner. This dish is adapted from a…
Corbin’s vs. Cheuvront There are so many ways to make grilled cheese. Sourdough or white bread? Cheddar cheese, American cheese or Swiss? With or without tomato? We explored a few grilled cheese haunts this week to bring you a sandwich face-off. In One Corner: Corbin’s Bar and Grill 8729 N…
Cute little Bertha’s Cafe is all grown up. The old postage-stamp sized restaurant near the corner of 40th Street and Thomas in Phoenix closed in April when owner Beth Goldwater’s lease was not renewed. Goldwater hustled and found a new spot at 3134 E. Indian School Road near 32nd Street…
What is there to say about zucchini pancakes? They’re simple, savory and a good complement to grilled fish. It’s also a way to trick your family into eating green vegetables. This is a vegetarian recipe, but not vegan because of the egg. It takes about half an hour from start…
Costco vs. Sam’s Club The economy is rough these days and we could all use a free meal. If you head to your nearest bulk goods store on the weekend, you’ll find a glut of free samples that would fill anyone. But which bulk store has the better samples going…
Who knew a movie about cooking could generate so much buzz? The Julia Child and Julie Powell biopic comes to the big screen this weekend. The hotly awaited film weaves the memoirs of both Child and Powell and it’s garnered largely positive early reviews. If you want to get in…
Not sure how you feel about Food Network stars but we’re big fans of Giada De Laurentiis. We received two cookbooks when we got married, Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and Giada’s Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes. The Bittman bible is dog-eared and beet-stained and we dip…
Pita Jungle vs. DeluxGazpacho is a cold soup, originally from Spain, and is the perfect antidote to these hellacious summer days. There are so many variations on gazpacho (chunky or pureed, spicy or mild) but they’re all tomato-based and raw, making them vegetarian and, more often than not, vegan-friendly.In One…
We’re experimenting here at Monday Night Martha by cooking from recipes downloaded to the Amazon Kindle. We received a free copy of The Cook’s Illustrated How-To Cook Library as part of a short promotion offered this spring. It’s slightly odd trying to cook from an electronic reading device because when…
Remember all those eager reports in the news last fall ballyhooing the arrival of a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market just a mile from downtown Tempe? The grocery chain was applying to the Tempe City Council for a liquor license. It sounded delightful, but more than six months later the…
Urban Cookies vs. Cupcakes It’s been several years since the cupcake craze ignited. According to most food fad timelines, cupcakes should have jumped the shark by now, but they obviously haven’t because there’s still no shortage of frou-frou cupcake boutiques around the Valley. That’s fine with us — what…
Bagna what? We found this recipe nosing around Epicurious. It’s an anchovy fondue-style dip from the Piedmont region of Italy. According to Wikipedia, bagna cauda means “hot sauce” and is typically eaten in the fall or winter. We’re one of those odd ducks that adores anchovies — all canned fish,…
If you’re jonesing for the yummy eats of the amazing (and James Beard Award winning) chef Nobuo Fukuda, head down to The Welcome Diner this Saturday. Chef Fukuda will be cooking up Japanese street food from 8 p.m. to midnight. Chef Fukuda operated Sea Saw, which closed in June. He’s…
Valley chef Joseph Gutierrez wastes no time. He’s the new owner of Tutto, an Italian restaurant at 7114 East Stetson Drive in Scottsdale. If the address rings a bell that’s because it’s the old spot for Digestif, which is opening soon (but not that soon) across the street in See…
Introducing a new segment today on Chow Bella: Battle of the Dishes. We try the same meal, but at two different local restaurants. It’s an eater smackdown. Los Reyes de la Torta vs. America’s Taco ShopWhen a friend suggested “tortas” as the inaugural plate for Battle of the Dishes, we…
Harira is a traditional soup in Morocco, served to break the fast during Ramadan. Soupsong, where we got this particular recipe, says it’s one of the best soups in the world and we won’t pick a fight with them over it. Their recipe isn’t perfect, but it’s close enough to…
We dipped into the archives of Grandma Hernandez’s collection of recipes again for this week’s entry — a quick and dirty cookie recipe made from store bought cake mix. You have to wonder who first took a box of prefab cake mix and got the bright idea to try to…
This is a slightly bizarre but delicious summer soup made of pureed watermelon and tomato. The soup is served cold and requires no cooking, so it’d make vegetarians, vegans and even the raw food crowd happy. The recipe comes from Epicurious by way of Self Magazine. Self says the soup…
This June has been Arizona’s coldest since 1913. But even the coldest of Arizona summers are warm by the rest of the country’s standards, with highs in the 90s at least. Still, most of us are aware that we’re living on stolen time, and we know that any day now,…
We’re serving up a unique Monday Night Martha today. This recipe comes from Julia Child, by way of our friend Sean Collins. In the late 1980s, Collins was working as a producer on NPR’s Morning Edition when he was assigned to help with a project at WGBH in Boston. “It…
Tonight’s meal could also be called “the dinner so nice, we made it twice.” The recipe is clipped from this month’s Gourmet magazine. You can also find it at Epicurious. The “pearls” in the title refer to a spherical semolina-based pasta known as Israeli couscous. Unlike its Moroccan counterpart, Israeli…
