From the outside, Koala Tea & Coffee doesn’t look like much.   more

Garlic chives are also known as Allium tuberoseum, which means “root garlic” in Latin. A. tuberoseum comes from a region that includes northern China. They are less onion-ey than regular chives or scallions and have more garlic pungency.  more

Jackfruit has become a popular meat alternative in the last few years. You can find it on vegan tacos, or on a vegetarian “pulled pork” sandwich at a barbecue joint and at your local grocery store. more

On a rainy evening a few weeks ago, a few friends and I ventured to Piazzano’s on North Grand River — the place “where good friends meet.” The family-style restaurant was buzzing at the start of the dinner rush.  more

For those in search of comfort food without the guilt, a new option has risen over Great Lansing. SunChef Kitchen Food Truck — a colorful truck adorned with a vibrantly painted sunset — has plenty of both vegetarian and meat dishes to choose from.  more

Instant ramen noodles have replaced cigarettes as the reserve currency of the incarcerated. They are available at most prison commissaries for about 60 cents each, providing you have money in your account. more

With the invasion happening in real time as I write this, I have no idea how the chips will have fallen by the time you read it. But one thing is clear. President Zelensky, and the nation he leads, are like a hearty bowl of borscht. Vladimir Putin, by contrast, is nothing but a tepid plate of Chicken Kiev.  more

Who are they — or, what are they? They’re nematodes, and they’ve been attacking hopyards throughout the state.  more

When he applied to Starbucks, Tarek Chawich was rejected. Now, he’s running his own coffee shop.  Chawich, 24, opened Château Coffee Co. last month on Lansing’s west side on South Waverly Road. more

A close friend of mine is an officer in the Navy stationed in Honolulu. While visiting over the holidays, I asked him if they’ve been trying much traditional Hawaiian cuisine. He gave me some side-eye and told me that a lot of Hawaiian food is very heavy, includes a lot of Spam, and wasn’t something that they were enjoying very much.  more

Lansing takes its chip dip pretty damn seriously. more

Congee is a pan-Asian dish beloved wherever rice is grown. It goes by other names, and it comes in many different flavors, but the core principle never changes. Cook the rice into a starchy cloud, flavored with the likes of ginger, chives and hoisin sauce. Eat it when comfort food is called for. more

The smell of fried garlic hit me as soon I opened the door. It is quite possibly the most intoxicating aroma on Earth. Alas, I feared it meant Edna had not waited, and that made me sad. I was there to learn how she makes moqueca, a tomato-based seafood stew that’s ubiquitous along the Brazilian coast. The dish varies by region, and Edna’s hometown of Vitoria is widely considered the birthplace of moqueca. That version of the dish, called moqueca Capixaba, is why I was there. At my mom’s house in Boston, that is. I already missed my golden opportunity to go to Vitoria in real life. more

If you love Strange Matter Coffee, you’re going to be overjoyed about two major recent announcements: its downtown Lansing coffee shop is getting much bigger and a whole new location is coming to Old Town. more

The hot cocoa in my life had never been acceptable. It was always too thin and runny. Too much like liquid, and I didn’t want liquid. I wanted a dense chocolate cloud in which to lose my sense of direction. To my great joy and greater girth, I finally solved the mystery of how to manifest this vision into reality. My thick hot chocolate is everything I yearned for. more

After the quagmire of 2020 and the suffocating shutdowns that were undeniably tough on the restaurant industry, 2021 offered some levity and normalcy. A swathe of new restaurants, cafes and other … more

French onion soup is the world’s most elegant dish. Not the kind of elegance you’d find on a white tablecloth with extra silverware, but elegant in the sense that scientists use the word. Like when a simple equation can express the relationship between matter and energy with as few ingredients as a pot of French onion soup. more

If you’re unfamiliar with Gopuff, the first thing to note about it is that it has absolutely nothing to do with marijuana. Like seemingly every single one of my friends, I too had that misconception. Disappointing, I know. It’s actually a delivery service that specializes in products that you would find at your garden-variety convenience store — snacks like potato chips ands bottles of soda.  more

Believe it or not, I have had some delicious and memorable meals in strip malls. When Mr. She Ate and I visited his father in Florida several years ago, they took me to an absolute dive that served some of the best shrimp po’ boys I’ve ever had. more

A few years ago in Rome, I found myself in a cramped room drinking olive oil from a cup. I was with a group of food writers, learning how to properly taste olive oil before traveling to the hilltop city of Perugia, where we would call upon our new tasting skills to work at an annual event celebrating Italy’s best artisan extra-virgin olive oils. But first, we needed a better understanding of the magical culinary ointment that we’d be sampling. more