Leah Eskin
Leah Eskin writes the food column "Home on the Range" as a special contributor for the Tribune’s Life + Style section. Eskin grew up baking chocolate chip cookies in Iowa City, Iowa. She stir-fried tofu from a closet kitchen at Brown University and managed enchiladas while studying in Paris. She made a snappy paella off-hours from journalism school at Columbia University. Eskin joined the staff of the Chicago Tribune Magazine in 2000. Her column, "Sum of the Parts," considered life’s urgent questions, including: Why does Ken tolerate Barbie? In 2004 she launched "Home on the Range," which offers a delicious essay and an insightful recipe each week. Though a Chicagoan at heart, she now lives with her husband and two underage food critics in Baltimore, Md.
Recent Articles
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You plan to travel. You plan to travel with cake. Why not? It's good company, and unlikely to snag the window seat.
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Hearth and home get cozy in the political speech and needlepoint pillow. I'm clear on home. Hearth? Not so much. Fireplace? Big fireplace? Big fireplace with cauldron? Like speechifying and needlepoint: Nothing I need.
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Things are dull. Pointless. Slow. Specifically: my knives. Intent on cubing beef or beet, I find myself embattled. There's sawing and hacking, yielding ragged, tired clumps and ragged, tired cook.
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"Turnip!" the kids shout, and I'm happy to oblige. I reach into the crisper and pull out the round root. Who can predict teen fads?
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We stole an hour. Late one night in spring, we swiped it clean off the clock. Played with it all summer, lingering in those late evenings until the lightning bugs fired up, past 9 p.m.
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Pumpkin is sweet. As pie, of course. As muffin and pancake and scone. As — notoriously, perhaps erroneously — latte. What other vegetable serves as shorthand for "little cutie"?
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My cookie-sheet collection had been reduced to single pan, a vintage model stamped "Free 49¢ pan with your initial purchase of new Py-O-My Pastry Mix." As artifact, it's a delight. As kitchen tool, not. It's rusted, bent and small.
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Sunday mornings other Minneapolis families went to church; we picked up bagels at the Lincoln Del. That's how I knew we were Jewish.