Julia Reed

Chicago has the distinction of being one of the handful of American destinations (including New York, L.A., Las Vegas, and California's Bay Area) to warrant its own Michelin guide.

Superstar chefs are a dime a dozen. The new foodie hero: the farmer.

The thought of 200 million gallons of oil spewing into the gulf is enough to give anyone pause when it comes to eating the living things in that sea. But restaurateurs are optimistic about the safety of the fish in the gulf.

Several years ago, when Quentin Tarantino made Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch into a film called Jackie Brown, it captured almost none of the book's genius. Leonard's work is deceptively multilayered, full of mood and pitch-perfect rhythm and action that seems entirely unforced. Most important, there's never been an Elmore Leonard novel that contains a single thing it shouldn't.

In his new Pig: King of The Southern Table, James Villas writes that he has "yet to meet a fellow Southerner who didn't love, respect, and, indeed, understand pig like no other Americans." The book's exhaustive collection of recipes from across the region proves Villas's case—and reminds me that not only do we utilize pretty much every pig part, but we save the leftovers to embellish almost everything else.

For the past three years it has been legal, once again, to sell absinthe in America. So far I have seen no noteworthy spike in violent crime, creativity, or especially wanton debauchery, all of which were purported results of regular absinthe drinking in its heyday, starting in the 1860s.

Just after new year's, I was having a festive drink with my friends Rod and Joyce when the talk turned—as the talk so often does these days—to budgets.

I have a friend whose most vivid Christmas memory centers on a bowl of peppermint ice cream. It was nothing fancy—unlike say, the white-chocolate-and-peppermint-bark version Häagen-Dazs brings out this time of year.

The history of America's beloved—if a bit dry—Thanksgiving turkey.

A memoir that's as delicious as its recipes.

A few weeks ago, I was leaving my parents' house in Mississippi when I saw my normally fairly composed mother in the rearview mirror, running down the driveway wild-eyed, carrying an armload of corn. "Wait, wait, you have to take these.

Who makes the best fried chicken: a Michelin-rated chef or a Southern master?

The summers of my youth were spent largely at the house of our neighbors, who had six children (including three good-looking, much older and very funny boys) and a playroom with a pool table, card table, stereo and ancient refrigerator.

When I was in my early 20s, my good buddy McGee generously moved to a penthouse apartment in Paris for three years. On the first of my (numerous) visits, we went out for "French" pizza, and when it arrived, I was a tad unnerved to find that it was crowned with a fried egg.

A lean, flavorful green for lean times.

An ode to a distinctly American drink

Creole cooking was born of a mix of cultures, and it requires new blood to keep it fresh.

How New Orleans coped after Gustav—and readied for its heirs.

The best ice cream sauce (adapted from "The Silver Palate Cookbook")

We had people over and served them cantaloupe daiquiris with basil and fresh coriander.

A national pastime became a far more sophisticated national obsession.

The first gin was made by a Dutch professor of medicine who promoted it as a diuretic.

Everybody eats more lamb than we do. In Australia and New Zealand, they consume 40 times as much.

Granny Fearing's 'Paper Bag Shook' chicken with whipped potatoes appears on the same menu as a nice foie gras duo.

It is no longer enough for produce to be 'fresh.' Chefs and diners demand that the offerings on the plate be seasonal.

Try one of the world's great drinks, the sidecar, which features the warming combination of brandy and Cointreau.

The ravages of Katrina are still evident everywhere you turn. But there is reason for optimism in New Orleans. A city that once laughed at its colorful and inept political culture has found its civic pride.

New Orleans, 18 months after Katrina, is still a city of considerable ups and downs. Tuesday was no different; as usual, the bad news came first. The first e-mail I received informed me that a block and a half from our new house, at 1:30 in the afternoon, two hold-ups occurred in less than 10 minutes—and I live in the Garden District, still perceived as a "nice" neighborhood, despite the alarming frequency of similar attacks, along with a recent rash of break-ins of both cars and houses (one...

The first time I dined with the legendary R. W. Apple, Jr., it was in St. Petersburg in 1997 at the newly opened Grand Hotel Europe. We'd been traveling with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her press spokesman, Jamie Rubin, who was familiar with Apple's gargantuan appetite and gourmet tastes and who had arranged a small dinner with courses that were to be worked out between the chef and Apple himself.

Moments after New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin won reelection with the smallest margin in modern mayoral history, he took the podium at the Marriott ballroom and proclaimed: "This is a great day for the city of New Orleans." We are, he said, "ready to take off."Well, nine months after Katrina and only days before the next hurricane season begins, one would hope.