Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Author: Ben Starr

  • A FRANK Tale: Eggs Galore

    I’m vastly behind on FRANK blogs…well, because we’ve been doing FRANK so often recently.  And each one has truly been epic enough to deserve its own blog.  This past April we celebrated our 2 year anniversary, and we decided to revisit the theme of our very first FRANK back in 2012…”The Egg.”  We had chosen…

  • Big Creek Cave Falls…the EASY way!

    I’ve been exploring the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas since I was 19.  There’s no place on earth like it…ancient mountains, thundering waterfalls, pristine rivers, deep and mysterious caves.  After after 30 or so trips there, one might start to think that one had explored it all.  But recently I became intrigued by an image I…

  • Sous Vide Scotch Eggs

    The Scotch Egg was invented in a pub in London, and it was an intriguing, if crude, concept.  A hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage, breaded and fried or baked to a crisp.  But hard boiled eggs are truly one of the worst inventions of mankind.  Yes, they are a convenient and nutritiously dense snack. …

  • A FRANK Tale: New Orleans

    Jennie and I both love New Orleans.  We’ve never been there together, unfortunately.  But we’ve each enjoyed some potently inspirational trips there separately, and when it came to deciding this March’s FRANK theme, it was a no-brainer.  Normally we fight for a few days to come up with the theme, but this one transpired effortlessly…

  • Calas (Creole sweet rice fritters)

    At our last FRANK, we wanted to serve a few Creole and Cajun classics that would be unfamiliar to the majority of our diners.  After all, everyone knows beignets, etouffee, gumbo, jambalaya, and boudin.  Calas (pronounced cah-LAHS)  turned out to be a perfect option.  These lovely little yeast-risen rice fritters were typically eaten at breakfast…

  • Oven-Fried Crispy Soft-Shell Crab

    Ah, soft-shell crab!  I vividly remember eating my first one…at a stunning brunch restaurant in the French Quarter of New Orleans called Stanley.  I’ll never forget it…all the complex textures, and the first time I’ve never had to curse while disassembling a crab to get all the lovely bits of meat morsels inside the sharp,…

  • A FRANK Tale: Aphrodisiacs Galore

    (Most of the photos in this blog appear courtesy of the incredibly talented Piya Trepetch, who flew in from the Bay Area to dine at FRANK with us.  Check out his amazing website and Facebook page, chock full of spectacular images!) At FRANK, we love our holiday themes.  For several months, Jennie and I have…

  • Sourdough Buttermilk Beignets

    Ah, beignets!  France’s answer to a donut, only without a hole, and rarely round.  Single-handedly made famous in the U.S. by Cafe du Monde, steps from the cathedral of St. Louis in the heart of the French Quarter in New Orleans…though certainly not perfected by them.  I actually grumble and groan anytime I take someone…

  • Rhubarb Pie

    In Texas, where the climate is too hot to grow rhubarb, it’s not an ingredient most folks here are familiar with.  When it does appear on market shelves in the spring, it can cost upwards of $6 a pound…pricey for a vegetable.  But occasionally I’ll run across it on sale, or we’ll splurge on it…

  • Bourbon Preserved Figs

    If you’re lucky enough to have a fig tree, or a neighbor who has one, you have figs coming out your ears in early summer…and perhaps again in late fall, especially if you live in a Southern state.  This fall crop of figs often gets interrupted by early frosts.  The figs are still green when…