Janice Binkert | Author
B&B Breakfast at Home
Jan. 15, 2022
Visitors to Northern Michigan — and often locals looking for a nearby getaway — are drawn to Bed & Breakfasts throughout the region for their cozy, comfortable ambiance but really, just as much for their fabulous breakfast and brunch offerings. We asked the innkeepers of two…
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Smoke & Porter Public House
Jan. 1, 2022
Whether you’re a camper or not, if you are from Northern Michigan, you probably have fond memories of sitting around a campfire on a beach or in your own backyard around a cozy wood fire — either roaring or glistening with dying embers — captivating your senses with it…
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Nov. 27, 2021 Everyone knows what an artist’s studio is, but what about a food studio? For Forrest and Nicole Moline, it’s a creative hub for the culinary arts. Swap out paintbrushes, canvas, and a gallery showroom for chef’s knives, a stove, and a dining room, and you have the same con…
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Oct. 2, 2021 Nearly 40 wineries can be found nestled among the vineyards dotting the picturesque, hilly slopes of the Leelanau and Old Mission peninsulas that jut out into Traverse City’s East and West bays. By contrast, for 17 years Left Foot Charley has been firmly ensconced in the histo…
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June 26, 2021 Vicente and Anna Serrano were both raised — he in rural Mexico and she in Traverse City — knowing the value of hard work and expecting nothing to be handed to them. But along the way in their lives, destiny intervened just at the right times to help them fulfill their dreams and…
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May 22, 2021 Meet the muffuletta, a sandwich that might just become your new favorite. An iconic New Orleans specialty, it predates even the city’s famous Po’Boy. May 15, 2021 They aren’t pretty to look at, with their gnarly, inky exterior, perhaps most suggestive of small fossilized dinosaur eggs. But the beauty of the black summer truffle — tartufo nero — lies within, in its cream-colored core. The pride of Italy’s Umbria region…
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May 8, 2021 My own “secret weapon” is a birthday gift I received from my husband some time ago (after several hints had been dropped by me). It’s a Cuisinart Smart Stick hand blender, and I’m sure I sound like a carnival hawker when I start telling friends and family how gre…
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May 1, 2021 Many Siren Hall fans initially mourned the fact that the popular Elk Rapids seafood restaurant morphed into American House Wood Fired Pizza in December 2020. But they soon realized that since owner-chef Michael Peterson — one of northern Michigan’s most respected culinary pr…
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April 17, 2021 No matter the weather, Traverse City’s newest breakfast and lunch restaurant, Benedict, radiates a welcome as warm as the sun with its light-filled, bright yellow-flecked interior and the smiles (recognizable even behind masks) of its owner, Leslie Elsen, and her friendly staff.Read More >>
Feb. 13, 2021 One of Traverse City’s newest and most innovative restaurant/cafes, Hexenbelle, launched in November 2020, is the concept of Christian Geoghegan (head chef), Hanna Lane (head baker), and Heather Webber (head of the coffee/espresso program). The members of this young trio are alrea…
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Jan. 30, 2021 The shopping, chopping, preparing, and portioning of mindfully nutritious food are perhaps some of the most daunting and time-consuming tasks in our daily efforts to eat and live healthfully. But what if you could get some of that time back? Time with your family and friends. Time for y…
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Jan. 16, 2021 How often, especially in northwest Michigan, do you have the chance to sample both classic English pub fare and an array of authentic dishes from India — all in one place? Now picture yourself doing just that in a quaint, custom-built, private (and heated) dining “shanty&rdq…
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Dec. 5, 2020 One might imagine that professional chefs go all out for holiday meals at home with family, preparing all manner of elaborate festive fare, plated and garnished exquisitely. That’s not always the case, most say, but when they do cook on these occasions, what is more important to them …
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Oct. 31, 2020 To paraphrase the famous line from the 1989 film Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” That’s certainly what happened with the dream that Little Fleet’s Gary and Allison Jonas and Loma Farm’s Nic and Sara Theisen realized upon launching F…
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Aug. 29, 2020 The menu is innovative, carefully curated and diverse. Yet there is no stove, grill, flat top, or fryer in the compact kitchen at Hopscotch. Head chef Justin Shafer and his crew cook everything in the restaurant’s double smoker or its 800-degree brick oven, with tantalizing result…
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Aug. 15, 2020 Cynthia Henderson has been involved in the restaurant industry in one way or another since the age of 14, first in her native state of Florida, and as of 1999 in her adopted home of Leelanau County. After working for others for many years, she started the Bayside Grill in Northport and late…
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July 11, 2020 Adorning the Small Batch logo is a friendly-looking bee, wings outspread. It could be a symbol for Lauretta Reiss, creative director and owner of the restaurant, bakery, and catering service that falls under the Small Batch heading. Reiss is the essential heart and soul of the whole operati…
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Feb. 15, 2020 While its cuisine is exotic by Northern Michigan standards, Taste of India’s location — namely, the food court at Grand Traverse Mall — is quite the opposite. However, judging by the number of customers who line up daily at the ordering counter to feast on everything f…
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Feb. 8, 2020 Valentine’s Day is a time where we’re urged to splurge on fancy chocolates, an extravagant bouquet of flowers, dinner out at an elegant restaurant, and/or an appropriately embellished greeting card filled with sweet declarations of affection.
Forrest – A Food Studio
Left Foot Charley
Spanglish
Common Good Bakery’s Muffuletta
By most accounts, the muffuletta was created in 1906 by one Salvatore Lupo, owner of the legendary Central Grocery (s…
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Black Truffles at Pepe Nero
Chefs’ Secret Weapons
American House Wood Fired Pizza
Benedict
Traverse City's Hexenbelle
Fuel My Life
Little Traverse Inn & Gastro Pub
Chefs' Holiday Table
Farm Club
Hopscotch Brick Oven & Taproom
Lylah's
Small Batch at the Cupola
The Tale of TC's Taste of India
Cook Up a New Valentine's Tradition
That said, it sure …
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