For Chicago Tribune Since 2005, James P. DeWan has been writing with wit and precision about cooking methods and techniques in his monthly Chicago Tribune column, "Prep School." DeWan is an award-winning food writer, musician and chef and the author…

Welp, it’s nigh on a full year since the world as we knew it threw in the towel, leaving us masked and quarantined on Planet Freakazoid. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been spending my time wisely. I shampooed the cat. I can now wink with…

I should come clean about a recent New Year’s resolution, the one where I swore to contemporize my cultural references. I have failed. Miserably. Which brings us to the irrepressible Irving Berlin. “Just around the corner, there’s a rainbow in the…

Speaking of home cooking, I was strolling through a cemetery the other day, the historic Graceland on Chicago’s North Side. Holy cripes on toast, you should see the monuments. This one dead guy, Potter Palmer — you’ve heard of The Palmer House Hotel?…

I’m sure the Germans have a word for it. Something like “Gerstelugenfechten.” You know what I’m talking about: that guilty relief you feel from having been absolved, by virtue of an unrelated catastrophic event, of an obligation you’re supposed to…

Oh, how we’ve fallen. Why, twern’t too long ago that, come supper time, Pa would tote his shootin’ arn out the back forty and fill a couple varmints with enough buckshot to tenderize their eatin’ bits, if you know what I mean. Sure, we can follow…

Hasn’t been much in the way of cheer in 2020, has there? Unless, of course, you’re fanboying over economic collapse, worldwide pandemic, resurgent antisemitism and interminable racism. Maybe, if we focus — just a bit — on some comforting, wintry…

If you believe Rodgers and Hammerstein, apparently the great state of Oklahoma once teemed with thundering herds of elephants. Starting each spring, from the dusty plains of Grainola in the north to the equally dusty plains of Gene Autry in the south…

Granted, it doesn’t roll off the tongue like “Jimmy ‘the Greek’ Snyder” or “Vlad ‘the Impaler’ Tepes,” but, over the years I’ve acquired the sobriquet, “Jim ‘Won’t-Shut-Up-About-the Visigoths’ DeWan.” But, come on, who doesn’t love a bit of the old…

Well, it’s nie on three full moons since the ol’ ‘Rona put a hitch in our collective giddy-up. And I, for one, find myself daily taking less delight in my own company. Happily, that nice man on the Motorola said there’ll soon be a vaccine. And on…

Welp, it’s finally what passes for spring here in my hometown of Chicargo. The sun be warmish, the trees doth bloometh, and enticing aromas from backyard grills waft gently through the protective layers of my seasonally appropriate lightweight face…

Merriam-Webster defines the potato pancake as a “lobe-finned fish known chiefly from Paleozoic and Mesozoic fossils.” Regardless, while both the potato pancake and the coelacanth go great with sour cream and applesauce, that’s where the similarities…

Don’t freak out, but are you having trouble remembering things? Sweet cripes on toast, how many times a day do I lose my cellphone? And names — don’t get me started. My awesome daughter has a friend I call “not-Helen” because I can’t remember her…

If you’re like me, God help you, you’re a sucker for cheap thrills, like the exciting physiological response that accompanies various items of consumption. Problem is, booze is so 2019, isn’t it? On top of that, I seem to have misplaced my copy of…

I’m of two minds about this whole “last meal” thing. You know, the one where you’ve been convicted (unjustly, of course) of a capital crime — espionage, for example, which is so crazy because you were just taking a selfie in front of the Kremlin —…

Don’t get me wrong: I am not — repeat: NOT — saying that if you don’t like chocolate, there’s something wrong with you, that maybe you are not from this planet (Earth). Perish the thought. On another topic, quick question: Is it possible there are…

OK, so, you’re asleep at the wheel of a late-model Buick Regal going way too fast on a one-lane bridge high above a yawning, rocky gorge through which flows an alligator-infested river of fire. As you hurtle toward the far side of the bridge, you…

So, Madge and I got totally into it the other day over my chimpanzee butler. Something about the way he dresses, Madge found it, I don’t know — “unseemly.” “What are you talking about? Mandrake likes being my butler, don’t you, Mandrake,” I said,…

That’s right. It’s our old pal sausage gravy, the dish for which the adjective “mucilaginous” was invented. Sausage gravy is so much more than the spackley white glop of our misshapen youth, and today, we plumb its sublimity. What, I didn’t have you…

Like the great crested grebe is how we’ll dive into today’s topic, labneh. Oh, labneh, you cheese-ish yogurt sequel, beloved art thou by Middle Eastern peeps from Aqaba to Zarqa, from Ta to Ur. If you’ve never had labneh, one of two things is…