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Steve Lyon

OK, all, now that we have our Food Blog revamped, itโ€™s time to start hearing from all of you foodies about what youโ€™re cooking and where youโ€™re eating. So tell us! (And remember you can use your Facebook log-in now if youโ€™d like!) Bon appetit!

Previous Comments

I love falafel and want to make it at home. Does anyone have a kick-butt recipe for it?


Jesse-I’ve actually tried three different recipes for falafel and have yet to find one that I can make from scratch that isn’t as good as the organic dried falafel prepared mix you can get in the organic section at Kroger! Seriously. I think its Casbah brand? Now I just use that as my base and jazz it up a little.


I’ve been making a festive chicken salad (My Mom’s old recipe. I use a whole chicken so that I can see all of its parts. It takes only a few minuetes to de-bone the chicken. Next I add grapes, apples, rasins and veggies such a onion, bell pepper, celery and lots of eggs. It’s a good salad: Served with crackers or used as a stuffin for tomatoes. Just a simple sandwich ain’t bad.


Lori, what do you jazz it up with?


Jesse-I just add extra cumin, turmeric, pepper (red and black) and garlic. I like mine SASSY. ๐Ÿ™‚ The mix is good, but I’m always in favor of adding my own spices to mixes once I’ve tried them out and decided what they needed to bring them up to speed. Its the base of the falafel that gives me issues. The base that I’ve made at home just never really turns out well. And, I went thru a falafel making “phase” where I was making them at home at least once a week. I finally gave up, went back to the boxed organic mix (which you can get at Rainbow as well) and then added my own spices and such. If you can put the guy that owns Aladdin in a headlock and get him to come up off what’s going on in theirs…I’ll PAY you for it! ๐Ÿ™‚ (Same for their Baba Ghanouj!!)


I don’t have a decent falafel recipe, sadly. I’ve finally figured out how to make good bread, its only taken me the better part of a decade to get it down pat. I’m craving some butterbean, bacon, and thyme soup this week, it isn’t really a summer dish, but it still delicious.

Founding Editor Donna Ladd is a writer, journalist and editor from Philadelphia, Miss., a graduate of Mississippi State University and later the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she was an alumni award recipient in 2021. She writes about racism/whiteness, poverty, gender, violence, journalism and the criminal justice system. She contributes long-form features and essays to The Guardian when she has time, and was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Jackson Free Press. She co-founded the statewide nonprofit Mississippi Free Press with Kimberly Griffin in March 2020, and the Mississippi Business Journal named her one of the state's top CEOs in 2024. Read more at donnaladd.com, follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @donnerkay and email her at donna@mississippifreepress.org.