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Grilled chicken slathered in a homemade barbecue sauce stars in this $25 dinner for four

By Gretchen McKay, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

June is a great time to fire up your grill and move at least some of your daily or weekly dinner duties to the backyard.

Cooking outdoors is usually cooler, tends to have a better view and is generally a lot more fun for both the cook and those he or she is trying to feed.

Chicken is often a prime choice when it comes to proteins to cook on gas or charcoal because it’s cheaper to feed a crowd with than beef or seafood. It’s also a lot more forgiving since it doesn’t require a lot of technique so long as you 1) cook over a moderate heat, 2) use an instant read thermometer to know when it’s done and 3) remember to let the grilled chicken rest for at least 5 minutes before slicing or serving so it can reabsorb some of its juices.

And if you take the time to soak it in a tasty marinade or stir together a homemade sweet-and-tangy barbecue sauce for basting, it will both elevate the flavor of the finished product and help keep the meat moist and tender.

While chicken breast is often a favorite choice because it’s leaner and has a milder, more subtle flavor, it’s also more expensive than other parts of the bird. Without a whole lot of fat to protect it from flames or heat as you grill it, it’s really easy to overcook and dry out.

That’s why I almost always opt for chicken thigh when I’m planning a cookout. It’s true that, as a fattier meat, dark-colored thigh packs more calories onto your plate than chicken breast. Still, it’s so much juicier and incredibly flavorful.

Grilled boneless, skinless chicken thigh builds the foundation for this summery budget meal for four. A scratch, ketchup-based barbecue sauce sweetened with brown sugar and spiced up with hot sauce and vinegar adds the perfect mix of tang and sugar, and because our recipe makes a lot of it, there’s plenty left over for dipping.

We serve it with a corn salad made with fresh kernels off the cob, salty feta and cherry tomatoes tossed in a simple four-ingredient dressing (if you don’t count the salt and pepper) that can be whisked together in seconds.

Rounding out the meal are roasted sweet potato chips and super-easy brown sugar blondies studded with butterscotch chips and chopped pecans and topped with gooey swirls of homemade strawberry jam.

It’s a feast fit if not for a king or queen (that’d require steak) at the very least a member of a royal family — especially since you’ll probably get some leftovers out of it.

Also impressive: It rings up 28 cents under our budget of $25.

I’m always surprised when a salad dish ends up costing more than dessert, but there’s no getting around the fact that fresh fruits and vegetables are becoming increasingly more expensive. All told, the corn salad added up to $6.55, or almost three times the price of the sweet potatoes ($2.25 for two) and more than half the total cost of the chicken, including the barbecue sauce.

Then again, I went with fresh ears of corn instead of canned or frozen and added not just a nice crumble of feta but also a generous handful of fat and juicy cherry tomatoes I couldn’t resist in the produce aisle.

Thanks in (small) part to the decreasing price of eggs and the fact that I almost always have homemade jam in my refrigerator, the blondies were quite economical, even with the addition of chips and pecans. Where else can you find a decadent, butterscotch-forward dessert for 42 cents a serving but from a home kitchen?

As always, I reached into my pantry and fridge for some of the ingredients most home cooks and/or bakers have on hand — olive oil, baking soda, vanilla, honey, vinegar and mustard — and I also did not calculate the cost of the basil in the salad because as someone who loves Italian cuisine, I am never without it.

Ditto with the red onion, a few of which are always in my refrigerator crisper, and various spices (though I did try to calculate the cost based on price per ounce).

Nothing on the menu takes more than 30 minutes to prepare, and if you get all your ducks in a row before you preheat the grill, you can make everything in one fell swoop.

As always, folks, remember to shop for ingredients at home before heading to the grocery store — it’s amazing how we forget what we already have on hand and then buy in duplicate, or let go to waste.

Ingredients for a budget-minded barbecue chicken dinner for four. (Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)
Ingredients for a budget-minded barbecue chicken dinner for four. (Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)

Corn-Tomato Salad

PG tested

Fresh corn is best for this recipe, but you also can use canned or frozen. I threw it into a hot skillet with a drizzle of olive oil and fried it while continuously shaking the pan until the kernels were charred, about 7 minutes.

The salad is equally delicious warm, at room temperature or chilled, if you want to make it ahead.

For salad

  • 4 cups fresh or frozen corn, rinsed and drained if frozen, and steamed, boiled or grilled if fresh
  • 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered
  • 1/3 cup crumbled feta
  • 1/4 red onion, finely chopped
  • 1/4 cup fresh basil (about a handful), thinly sliced, optional

For dressing

  • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 2 teaspoons honey
  • 1 small clove garlic, minced
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Toss corn, tomatoes, feta, onion and basil in a large bowl and set aside while you make dressing.

In a small jar or bowl, stir together olive oil, lime juice, honey and garlic. Season to taste with salt and pepper

Add dressing to the corn mixture and mix well to combine. Taste and add more salt or pepper, if needed.

Serves 4.

— Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette

Grilled Barbecue Chicken

PG tested

Chicken thighs are not only cheaper than chicken breast, but they’re also juicier and have a richer flavor. The homemade barbecue sauce that goes on top is spicy-sweet — brush it on while you’re cooking and also serve on the side for dipping.

For chicken

  • 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast
  • 1 tablespoon dry rub of choice

For barbecue sauce

  • 1 cup ketchup
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon hot sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tablespoon barbecue rub
  • 1 tablespoon mustard
  • 1/2 teaspoon each garlic and onion powder

Prepare barbecue sauce: In saucepan over medium-low heat, stir together ingredients until well combined. Simmer for 5-10 minutes and use immediately or transfer when cool to an airtight container and store in refrigerator for up to a month. (Makes about 1 cup.)

Preheat grill to medium-high heat (400 degrees) and lightly oil the grates. If using charcoal, set up the briquettes underneath the grill grate.

Place the chicken on the grill and cook for 3-4 minutes, until grill marks have formed and the chicken is nicely browned.

Flip the thighs over and let cook for 3 minutes. Brush on the side facing up lightly with barbecue sauce and cook an additional 3 minutes.

Flip the chicken again, and brush lightly with more barbecue sauce on this side. Cook for 2 minutes.

Flip one last time, and brush again with barbecue sauce.

Continue to cook until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees (about 20 total minutes on the grill). Serve immediately, either whole or sliced.

Serves 4.

— Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette

Roasted Sweet Potato Chips

PG tested

Sweet potatoes are more nutritious than regular potatoes, and they’re also so easy to cook. In this recipe, you just slice, sprinkle with spices and bake.

  • 2 large sweet potatoes
  • Olive oil, for coating
  • Salt and paprika, for seasoning

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Use a mandolin slicer or chefs knife to cut sweet potatoes into paper-thin rounds. Depending on how big your potatoes are, you may also want to then slice then into half-moons.

Pile sweet potato rounds into a large bowl and drizzle with olive oil. Using your hands, gently toss to coat every piece with oil. Lay the rounds out on the baking sheets in a single layer.

Sprinkle the chips lightly with salt and smoked paprika. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until crisp and golden around the edges.

Serve immediately.

Serves 4.

— Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette

Barbecued chicken thigh headlines this budget dinner for four. (Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)
Barbecued chicken thigh headlines this budget dinner for four. (Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)

Strawberry-Pecan Blondies

PG tested

I used strawberry jam and pecans for this recipe, but it’s easy to customize with your favorite flavors. Try almonds and blueberry jam or pistachios and raspberry jam. Perfect for a simple dessert — or breakfast.

  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for pan
  • 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg, slightly beaten
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 cup butterscotch chips
  • 1/4 cup chopped pecans
  • 3 tablespoons strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, leaving an overhang on 2 sides. (I used parchment paper.) Butter the foil.

Combine butter and brown sugar in a large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave until the butter is melted, about 1 minute.

Stir in vanilla. Let cool slightly, then stir in the egg.

Whisk the flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl. Stir into the butter mixture.

Stir in butterscotch chips and pecans and spread the batter in the pan. Drop dollops of strawberry jam on top and swirl with a knife.

Bake the blondies until set, about 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a rack and let cool 15 minutes, then lift out of the pan using the foil. Transfer to rack to cool completely.

Discard the foil and cut into squares.

Makes 9 blondies.

— adapted from “Baking for Fun: 75 Great Cookies, Cakes, Pies & More” by Food Network Magazine

©2025 PG Publishing Co. Visit at post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

This budget dinner for 4 features a fresh corn salad, roasted sweet potato chips, barbecued boneless chicken thigh and strawberry-pecan blondies for dessert. (Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)

A new generation of Indigenous chefs is growing and cooking foods traditional to their ancestors

In her 2023 cookbook “Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky,” New Mexico-based chef and historian Lois Ellen Frank said the present era of Indigenous cuisine revolves around modern chefs understanding the ingredients and the farming practices of their ancestors.

“It’s now up to each Native American community and each Native American chef to decide what the New Native American Cuisine is and what they are going to serve on their plates,” Frank, who was advised by Navajo chef Walter Whitewater, wrote in her introduction.

Several young women chefs are doing just that in the Denver area, starting food businesses and planting gardens as a way to reconnect with the land and the traditions of the past. They are defining in real time what New Native American Cuisine can be, from cultivation to creation.

Their work is moving forward Indigenous cuisine in a critical time of repossession after the forced relocations of the 19th century and the food distribution programs of the 20th century, a recent period Frank referred to in her cookbook as “the most painful and most difficult in terms of health and wellness in Native American Cuisine history.”

Before the exploration of the Americas, most of the Indigenous diet in the Southwest and Four Corners region came from farmed foods such as corn, beans and squash (sometimes called “the three sisters”). After the country relocated Native Americans to reservations, they were issued government rations of mass-produced food different from what they were used to, Frank writes. To her and some of her colleagues, it amounted to “nutritional genocide.”

Denver has long associated Native American cuisine with Tocabe and its fry bread tacos, made with shredded bison, hominy and roasted green chiles. When Matt Chandra and Ben Jacobs opened Tocabe in 2008, the restaurant was billed as “the only American Indian-owned and -operated restaurant in metro Denver specializing in Native American cuisine.”

After learning that Jacobs, a Native chef, was using some of his family’s recipes, Micaela Iron Shell-Dominguez, 36, knew she had to work there.

An environmental and Indigenous activist — and actor with the Annishabae Theater Exchange — whose father is Lakota and mother is from the San Luis Valley, Iron Shell-Dominguez noted the sanctity of ancestral foods and emphasized the role women played in feeding Native communities.

“I remember after working there for a while, I told Ben and Matt I was so inspired by everything they did that one day I wanted to open and own an Indigenous restaurant just like them,” she said in an email to The Denver Post.

She is now a mother of two and worker-owner of Moonshell Pizza Cooperative (www.moonshell.coop), a roving pizza crew where her partner, Sid Farber, is lead dough roller. The bounty of foods native to the region, such as corn, berries and sage, makes it easy to base dishes around those ingredients, she said. Their buffalo chokecherry pizza is one such example, she added, the chokecherry plant being native to Colorado.

Iron Shell-Dominguez’s multidisciplinary and holistic approach to her Native culture is also shared by Indigenous groups outside of North America.

Alejandra Tobar, left, and Chef Andrea Condes harvest vegetables at The Rooted Andina in Arvada on Thursday, June 5, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Alejandra Tobar, left, and Chef Andrea Condes harvest vegetables at The Rooted Andina in Arvada on Thursday, June 5, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

Andrea Condes, 39, was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and adopted into the United States, where she grew up and pursued a career in the culinary arts. It was in Colorado where the self-described “child of the Andes” landed. Although separated by thousands of miles, Condes saw many similarities integral to the experiences of the pre-colonial Americas.

“How people are treated, how the land is respected, how animal relatives and plant relatives are just that: relatives,” Condes said.

Drawn to root vegetables like the potato, which originated in the Andes, she started a catering company, Four Directions Cuisine (www.fourdirectionscuisine.com). She grows her own plants and is hosting meals two weekends a month through October as The Rooted Andina at her home in Arvada.

Learning about Indigenous foods and history, she said, helped her overcome the “cultural gap” of living in another country and brought her closer to her homeland.

“It’s definitely not something that I had language for when I first started walking down this path,” Condes said. “Reconnecting with those foods, I didn’t realize then, but I do now: It was me reconnecting with myself.”

Chef Andrea Condes harvests strawberries and medicinal sage at The Rooted Andina in Arvada on Thursday, June 5, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Chef Andrea Condes harvests strawberries and medicinal sage at The Rooted Andina in Arvada on Thursday, June 5, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

Since growing food was a way of life, some New Native American Cuisine chefs are returning to the practice, what Frank equates with “food sovereignty.” Planting companion crops, such as the three sisters, is one of the cultivation methods Frank teaches in an effort to bring what she calls “traditional ecological knowledge” (TEK) back to Native communities.

Narissa Ribera, a member of the Navajo Nation, started planting out of necessity. She was always fascinated with food systems, a jack-of-all-trades who learned to garden as a child and had years of experience baking cottage foods.

The lifestyle developed into Ch’il Indigenous Foods (www.chil-indigenousfoods.com), a meal pickup service she started three years ago. She works out of a commercial kitchen in the Wheat Ridge Center for Music and Arts in Wheat Ridge, baking cookies with ingredients grown by Indigenous harvesters and other delicacies, like blue corn ice cream. (She’ll soon open an outdoor eating area at the arts center.)

Narissa Ribera poses for a portrait at Ch'il Indigenous Foods in Wheat Ridge on Thursday, June 5, 2025 (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Narissa Ribera poses for a portrait at Ch’il Indigenous Foods in Wheat Ridge on Thursday, June 5, 2025 (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

The city of Wheat Ridge lent her two commercial plots of land behind the city’s community garden, where she cultivated the beans, corn and squash (including Apache gourds and Lakota squash) along with sunflowers. It’ll be a couple of years until the crops are ready to harvest, she said.

Until then, Ribera is preparing to launch a Native cookie and tea business with the ingredients for the tea grown in her garden, she said. She received federal grants to help with marketing and her brand, which she would one day like to see in supermarkets.

“I want representation,” Ribera said.

Popcorn kernels at Ch'il Indigenous Foods in Wheat Ridge on Thursday, June 5, 2025 (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Popcorn kernels at Ch’il Indigenous Foods in Wheat Ridge on Thursday, June 5, 2025 (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

Although she welcomes non-Natives who support her work and want to learn about Indigenous foods, her main concern is reconnecting Native people to their ancestral foods.

“So much was taken from us, including so much of our food,” she said. “You’ll find a lot of Native people… they’re just not interested in cooking.”

She solicits social media followers to help tend the Wheat Ridge gardens and visits classes at Jefferson County schools, showing students how to make Indigenous dishes.

At a winter holiday market, Ribera sold a box of cookies that came with a paper describing each one and the history behind its ingredients. For her, the joy was in having an authentic option for Indigenous people to gift their friends and family.

Chef Andrea Condes poses for a portrait at the garden of The Rooted Andina in Arvada on Thursday, June 5, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

‘American’ foods are changing, but July 4 still revolves around the grill

For much of the last century of American history, barbecues and potlucks have dominated the Fourth of July feast-ivities.

Hot dogs and hamburgers accompany sides of macaroni and cheese, potato salad and watermelon slices in ecstatic union in backyards and front porches across the country. Coolers full of beer and soda crackle as the ice melts throughout the hot summer day. Ice-cream sandwiches, popsicles and pie await as the sun sets and fireworks light up the night.

But those aren’t the only kinds of American foods. Immigrants from other countries often celebrate their patriotism with twists on the classics, or other foods entirely.

And with its proximity to the Southwest, Colorado has a few of its own traditions for the patriotic holiday, including green and red chile, corn, beans and tortillas — foods eaten in Hispanic communities long before there was a Colorado or a Fourth of July.

In fact, anthropologist Carole Counihan documented Fourth of July foods in Colorado’s San Luis Valley in a report published in a 2009 anthology, The Globalization of Food. She observed special dishes such as posole, deviled eggs and pasta, noting the holiday is represented by dishes from all over the world with a heavy emphasis on grilled meats.

Below, a group of Denver chefs share their personal spreads for the Fourth of July. Some, like Munetoshi Taira at Sushi by Scratch and Manny Barella at Riot BBQ, which opened this year, weren’t born in the United States. Others, like Ni Nguyen of Sap Sua and Darren Chang at Pig and Tiger, are first-generation Americans. Lastly, one chef shares a recipe inspired by his annual travels to Italy for the Fourth.

The grill and the outdoors are what tie most of their respective menus together.

Chef Manny Barella looks at orders at The Regular on Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Denver Colorado. (Photo by Rebecca Slezak/Special to The Denver Post)
Chef Manny Barella looks at orders at The Regular on Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Denver Colorado. (Photo by Rebecca Slezak/Special to The Denver Post)

Manny Barella, Riot BBQ (2180 S. Delaware St.): “BBQ culture was a huge part of my upbringing in Monterrey, Mexico. Every gathering revolved around open-fire cooking and outdoor grilling. Tending to the grill on your own is a rite of passage. We celebrate the Fourth of July here in the U.S. by honoring those same grilling traditions. You can count on me having carne asada, ribs al pastor and grilled vegetables on the table. We also like to smoke chimichurri, a classic element of Monterrey cookouts thanks to the strong Argentine influence in our region.”

Erasmo “Ras” Casiano, Xiquita (500 E. 19th Ave.): “We go all out with a giant backyard BBQ that is exactly like the gatherings we had back in Mexico. We throw carne asada and chicken on the fire and make a bunch of salsas: salsa Mexicana, pico de gallo, salsa ranchera. And of course, fresh corn tortillas and rice. We wrap onions in aluminum and throw them in the fire. Once they are good and roasted we hit them with some lime juice. The day is all about great food and gathering with family and friends. That’s the best tradition of all.”

Darren Chang, Pig and Tiger (2200 California St.; opening this summer): “My dad grilled Taiwanese street corn every Fourth of July growing up in [Los Angeles]. Some of my best summer memories are standing around the grill and eagerly awaiting that first bite of succulent corn. At Pig and Tiger, our Taiwanese street corn starts with fresh Olathe corn. We use my dad’s original shacha sauce recipe (only difference is that we make it vegan), then we give it a dash of sweet soy for a perfectly savory-sweet bite.”

Pig and Tiger chefs Darren Chang and Travis Masar cook Taiwanese Street Corn at their apartment in Denver on Friday, June 6, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Pig and Tiger chefs Darren Chang and Travis Masar cook Taiwanese Street Corn at their apartment in Denver on Friday, June 6, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

Anna and Anthony “Ni” Nguyen, Sap Sua (2550 E. Colfax Ave.): “Every year, we make BBQ pork skewers, Americana-style. We skewer quartered onions and bell peppers along with pork shoulder marinated in lemongrass. We still don’t miss out on the hot dogs, though! We throw them on the grill right alongside the pork shoulder and serve them with Vietnamese accouterments. Our favorite is bratwurst with our version of pickles: lacto-fermented garlic, baby eggplant, daikon, and carrot. It provides the perfect, briny, acid pop. Don’t forget the brown mustard.”

Munetoshi Taira, Sushi by Scratch Restaurants (1441 Larimer St.): “In my kitchen, I enjoy blending traditional American Independence Day dishes with Japanese flavors. For instance, I often prepare yakitori-style grilled meats alongside classic barbecue fare, and I like to incorporate ingredients like miso or shiso into familiar sides such as potato salad. This fusion not only honors the holiday but also reflects the harmonious blend of cultures that I cherish.”

Darrel Truett, Barolo Grill (3030 E. 6th Ave.): “For the past 15 years, I’ve spent the Fourth of July in Italy with the Barolo Grill team on our annual staff trip. One of the things I always look forward to on a hot day during that first week of July is Panzanella. It’s an Italian bread salad with mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers and toasted bread tossed in a beautiful red wine vinaigrette. And I usually make it when I come home from the trip — shortly after the Fourth of July — to offset all of the incredible food and wine we indulged in.”

Pig and Tiger chefs Travis Masar, left, and Darren Chang cook Taiwanese Street Corn at their apartment in Denver on Friday, June 6, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

Recipe: Sausage and broccoli rabe sub riffs on Philly classic

By Gretchen McKay, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Philadelphia is famous for its cheesesteak sandwiches.

Yet, if you’ve ever been to the city’s Reading Terminal Market on Arch Street in Center City (a favorite haunt when I was in paralegal school), you’ve probably also seen the long lines in front of Tommy DiNic’s. (If you know, you know.)

The star of this iconic sandwich counter, which has been drawing crowds since it opened in1977, is a succulent, slow-roasted Italian roast pork sandwich topped with sharp provolone and drippy, garlicky braised broccoli rabe (also known rapini). It’s a decidedly messy nosh as the ingredients can, and probably will, spill out as you eat it.

As tough as it is for a Pittsburgh girl to fall in love with something from Philly (my husband excluded), I have to admit it’s pretty incredible. I get the signature sandwich every time I’m in town, and never regret it.

This sub recipe (or should we say hoagie?) from America’s Test Kitchen is a riff on that storied sandwich served on a sesame-seeded Sarcone’s Bakery roll. Spicy Italian sausage stands in for the thinly sliced roasted pork that is a three-day process at DiNic’s. It also includes savory, tender slices of portobello mushrooms cooked with fennel, fresh rosemary and a touch of soy sauce. Shredded provolone goes right into the pan with the meat and veggies for a melty, we’re-all-friends finish.

Like DiNic’s, this recipe spotlights broccoli rabe. It’s a cruciferous green that looks like leafy broccoli, but as a member of the Brassicaceae family, is actually more closely related to the turnip. Its flavor is more bitter than broccoli, and the greens can also be fibrous, but the two veggies are interchangeable in this recipe. I used long, tender stalks of Broccolini instead of broccoli rabe, which I couldn’t find in my local grocery store.

Don’t skimp on the pickled red cherry hot peppers as a final flourish. They’re only mildly spicy, and you can’t beat that extra kick of flavor.

I used 6-inch (Mancini’s) sausage rolls instead of 8-inch sub rolls, so I had enough filling for five sandwiches. Be sure to toast the bread until it’s quite brown and crispy. Otherwise the filling could turn the sandwich into a (still delicious) soggy mess.

Wrapped in aluminum foil and reheated in a 350-degree oven for a few minutes, any leftovers make a great lunch the next day.

Philly-style Sausage and Broccoli Rabe Subs

PG tested

  • 4 8-inch Italian sub rolls
  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin oil, divided
  • 3 garlic cloves, sliced thin
  • 1 pound broccoli rabe, trimmed and cut into 1/2 -inch pieces
  • 1/4 plus 1/8 teaspoon salt, divided
  • 8 ounces hot Italian sausage
  • 1 pound portobello mushroom caps, wiped clean, and sliced 1/4 -inch thick
  • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, cracked
  • 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
  • 1 teaspoon soy sauce
  • 4 ounces shredded sharp provolone cheese
  • 2 tablespoons chopped or slice jarred hot cherry peppers, optional

Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 450 degrees.

If needed, slice rolls to make them easier to open (without slicing all the way through). Use spoon or your fingers to scraped inside of rolls and remove all but 1/4 i nch of interior crumb; discard removed crumb or use to make bread crumbs or croutons. Set aside while you prepare filling.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil and sliced garlic in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat until garlic is light golden brown, 3-5 minutes.

Add broccoli rabe and 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 4-6 minutes. Transfer to bowl and cover to keep warm.

Heat 1 teaspoon oil in now-empty skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add sausage and cook, breaking up meat into small pieces with wooden spoon, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.

Add 1 tablespoon oil to fat left in skillet and heat over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add mushrooms and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms have released their liquid, 3-5 minutes.

Uncover and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are well browned, 5-7 minutes. Reduce heat to low.

Clear center of skillet and add remaining 2 teaspoons oil, fennel seeds and rosemary. Stir in soy sauce and cooked sausage, then stir in cheese until melted. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm.

Arrange reserved rolls on baking sheet and bake until lightly toasted, about 3 minutes.

Divide mushroom and broccoli rabe mixture evenly among rolls. Top with cherry peppers, if using, and serve.

Serves 4.

— adapted from “Mostly Meatless” by America’s Test Kitchen

©2025 PG Publishing Co. Visit at post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

This Philly-style sub is filed with hot Italian sausage, broccolini, portobello mushrooms and shredded provolone. (Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)

Could you eat this much ice cream after walking 1,100 miles? Some Appalachian Trail hikers try

By MARK SCOLFORO

GARDNERS, Pa. (AP) — Sam Cooper had just trekked 7 miles through a rain-sodden stretch of the Appalachian Trail when he sat down outside a little country store in Pennsylvania to take on its ice cream challenge.

Nearly 40 minutes and 2,500 calories later, the dairy farmer from Chapel Hill, Tennessee, was polishing off the final titanium sporkful of chocolate chip cookie dough on Tuesday and adding his name to the list of “thru-hikers” who have celebrated the trail’s halfway point by downing a half-gallon of ice cream.

By the end Cooper, 32, whose trail name is Pie Top, was calling the experience “pure misery.”

“I don’t think anybody should be doing this,” Cooper said cheerfully. “This is not healthy at all.”

The ice cream challenge is thought to have begun more than four decades ago at the Pine Grove Furnace General Store in Gardners, a few miles north of the current true halfway point on the 2,197-mile trail. Thru-hikers, as they’re known, are the fraction of the trail’s 3 million annual visitors who attempt to walk its entire length in a single, continuous trip.

As they slog their way north through Virginia and Maryland, the ice cream challenge is a regular topic of conversation among thru-hikers at shelters and campfires, said Stephan Berens, 49, a psychiatric nurse from Nuremberg, Germany.

Berens, whose trail name is Speedy, polished off his black cherry and vanilla in about 25 minutes after completing 17 miles on the trail that day — and with seven more to go that afternoon.

  • Hershey’s Ice Cream delivery driver Sam Sattazahn delivers ice cream...
    Hershey’s Ice Cream delivery driver Sam Sattazahn delivers ice cream to Pine Grove Furnace general store, home of the half-gallon ice cream challenge, at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, June 10, 2025.(AP Photo/Mingson Lau)
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Hershey’s Ice Cream delivery driver Sam Sattazahn delivers ice cream to Pine Grove Furnace general store, home of the half-gallon ice cream challenge, at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, June 10, 2025.(AP Photo/Mingson Lau)
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‘The most free I’ve ever felt’

Trail experts say hikers can need up to 6,000 calories a day, a practical challenge when food needs to be carried up and down rocky terrain. The slender Berens figures he’s lost about 20 pounds since starting April 8.

“I thought it would be worse, but it’s OK,” said Berens, smiling and patting his stomach after finishing the half-gallon. “Such a crazy idea.”

Zeke Meddock, trail name Petroglyph, didn’t bother timing himself but finished his choice of a quart and a half carton of chocolate chip cookie dough and a pint of strawberry. The diesel mechanic from North Amarillo, Texas, began his hike on March 27, two months after finishing a stint in the U.S. Army.

“You’re basically walking away from life,” said Meddock, 31. “It’s the most free I’ve ever felt.”

So far this year, about 50 thru-hikers have finished the challenge, earning the honor of having their photos posted on a store bulletin board. In a notebook to record their thoughts, Chicken Louise wrote on May 24: “Life choices?” The next day, Seagull weighed in with, “I feel bad,” and Hyena issued a cry for help: “It was very fun for the first 15 minutes. Now, I (and my family) want to die.”

The ice cream challenge record, less than 4 minutes, was set two years ago by a man with the trail name Squirt. Two decades ago, the mark to beat was about 9 minutes.

Thru-hikers who want to attempt the record may only allow the $12 worth of ice cream to start to melt in the sun for a few minutes. They must be timed by a store employee.

“It’s called the half-gallon challenge,” Cooper said. “Very appropriately named.”

Bragging rights and a spoon

Bruce Thomas, a 41-year-old disability support worker from Medicine Hat in Alberta, Canada, passed on the ice cream challenge, opting instead for a breakfast sandwich and another one for the road.

“It’s early morning and I’m pretty sure I cannot do it,” said Thomas, trail name Not Lazy.

Those who do finish in a single sitting are awarded a commemorative wooden spoon — and bragging rights for the rest of their hike. Some people get sick. Others wash down the ice cream with a hamburger.

The ice cream challenge is one of several quirky traditions and places along the trail. There’s a shelter in Virginia where hikers confess their sins in a logbook, a two-hole outhouse in Maine with a cribbage board between the seats and a free canoe ferry across the Kennebec River that’s considered an official part of the trail. And at Harriman State Park in Tuxedo, New York, hikers encounter the renowned “Lemon Squeezer,” a narrow rock formation.

About one in three people who launch a thru hike take the roughly 5 million steps required to go the distance. They most often walk from south to north, starting in Springer Mountain, Georgia, and wrapping up 13 states later at Maine’s Mount Katahdin.

The trek typically takes six months but the current speed record is about 40 days, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. Meddock said there’s talk that a man on the trail behind him may be on pace to break it.

There’s also been a lot of discussion among hikers about the extensive damage along the trail in southern states from September’s Hurricane Helene. But mostly they think and talk about walking.

“It’s always hard,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be hard. I never think about quitting. I only think about how I can do it.”

Appalachian Trail thru-hiker Sam Cooper, trail name Pie Top, attempts the half-gallon ice cream challenge at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Mingson Lau)

Cambodian American chefs are finding success and raising their culture’s profile. On their terms

By TERRY TANG

Chef Phila Lorn was not necessarily aiming for “quote-unquote authentic” Cambodian food when he opened Mawn in his native Philadelphia two years ago. So when he approached some Cambodian teen patrons, he braced himself for questioning.

“Someone’s going to say something like, ‘That’s not how my mom makes her oxtail soup,’” Lorn said. “So I walk up to the table. I’m like, ‘How is everything?’ And the kid looks up to me and he goes, ‘It doesn’t even matter, dude. So glad you’re here.’”

It was at that moment that Lorn realized Mawn — the phonetic spelling of the Khmer word for “chicken” — was more than a noodle shop. It meant representation.

In June, he will be representing his dual cultures — Cambodian and Philly — at his first James Beard Awards, as a nominee for Best Emerging Chef. In the food world, it’s akin to getting nominated for the Academy Awards.

Cambodian restaurants may not be as commonplace in the U.S. as Chinese takeout or sushi spots. And Cambodian food is often lazily lumped in with the food of its Southeast Asian neighbors, despite its own distinctness. But in recent years, enterprising Cambodian American chefs have come into their own, introducing traditional dishes or putting their own twist on them.

Many of them were raised in families who fled the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, which began 50 years ago and killed about 1.7 million people. Since then, the Cambodian community in the U.S. has grown and set down roots.

Through food, these chefs are putting the attention back on Cambodian heritage and culture, rather than that traumatic history.

Dr. Leakhena Nou, a sociology professor at California State University, Long Beach who has studied social anxiety among post-Khmer Rouge generations, says the Cambodian diaspora is often seen by others too narrowly through the lens of victimhood. In 2022, she publicly opposed California legislation that focused only on genocide for a K-12 curriculum on Cambodian culture.

“It’s a part of their history so they shouldn’t run away from it but at the same time they should force others to understand that that’s not the only part of their heritage, their historical identity,” she said.

What is Cambodian cuisine?

Cambodian food has sometimes been hastily labeled as a mild mix of Thai and Vietnamese with some Chinese and Indian influence. But, it has its own native spices and flavors that have been used throughout Southeast Asia. Khmer food emphasizes seafood and meats, vegetables, noodles, rice and fermentation. Salty and sour are prevalent tastes, Nou says.

Chef Phila Lorn holds a bowl of the The Mawn Noodle soup at his restaurant, Mawn, in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Chef Phila Lorn holds a bowl of the The Mawn Noodle soup at his restaurant, Mawn, in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

“It’s actually a very healthy diet for the most part in terms of fresh vegetables. Cambodians love to eat fresh vegetables dipped with some sauce,” Nou said.

Signature dishes include amok, a fish curry; lok lak, stir-fried marinated beef; and samlar koko, a soup made using seasonal produce. Nou recalls her father making it with pork bone broth, fish, fresh coconut milk, lemongrass, vegetables and even wildflowers.

Cambodian migration to the U.S.

It was a half-century ago, on April 15, 1975, that the communist Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. For the next four years, an estimated one-quarter of the population was wiped out due to starvation, execution and illness.

Refugees came in waves to the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s. Most took on low-level entry jobs with few language barriers, Nou said. These included manufacturing, meatpacking and agricultural labor. Many worked in Chinese restaurants and doughnut shops.

The U.S. Cambodian population has jumped 50% in the last 20 years to an estimated 360,000 people, according to the Census 2023 American Community Survey.

Cooking Cambodian American

Lorn’s family settled in Philadelphia in 1985. The only child born in the U.S., he was named after the city (but pronounced pee-LAH’). Like a lot of Asian American kids, Lorn was “the smelly kid” teased for not-American food in his lunch. But, he said, defending his lunchbox made him stronger. And he got the last laugh.

“It’s cool now to be 38 and have that same lunchbox (food) but on plates and we’re selling it for $50 a plate,” said Lorn, who opened Mawn with wife Rachel after they both had worked at other restaurants.

Customers wait in line for the Mawn restaurant to open for lunch in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Customers wait in line for the Mawn restaurant to open for lunch in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Indeed, besides popular noodle soups, Mawn has plates like the $60 steak and prohok, a 20-ounce ribeye with Cambodian chimichurri. Prohok is Cambodian fermented fish paste. Lorn’s version has lime juice, kulantro, Thai eggplants and roasted mudfish.

It sounds unappetizing, Lorn admits, “but everyone who takes a piece of rare steak, dips and eats it is just like, ‘OK, so let me know more about this food.’”

May, which is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and when Cambodia conducts a Day of Remembrance, is also when Long Beach has Cambodian Restaurant Week. The city is home to the largest concentration of Cambodians outside of Cambodia.

Chad Phuong, operator of Battambong BBQ pop-up, was a participant.

Phuong came to Long Beach as a child after fleeing the Khmer Rouge, which murdered his father. After high school, he worked at a Texas slaughterhouse and learned about cutting meats and barbecue. In 2020, he pivoted from working in the medical field to grilling.

Known as “Cambodian Cowboy,” he has been profiled locally and nationally for brisket, ribs and other meats using a dry rub with Cambodian Kampot pepper, “one of the most expensive black peppers in the world.” There’s also sausage with fermented rice and sides like coconut corn.

The pitmaster recently started mentoring younger vendors. Contributing to the community feels like building a legacy.

“It just gives me a lot of courage to present my food,” Phuong said. “We don’t need to talk about the past or the trauma. Yes, it happened, but we’re moving on. We want something better.”

More Cambodian-run establishments have flourished. In 2023, Lowell, Massachusetts, mayor Sokhary Chau, the country’s first Cambodian American mayor, awarded a citation to Red Rose restaurant for being a Beard semifinalist. This year, Koffeteria bakery in Houston, Sophon restaurant in Seattle and chef Nite Yun of San Francisco’s Lunette Cambodia earned semifinalist nods.

Chef Phila Lorn walks through his restaurant, Mawn, after opening for the day in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Chef Phila Lorn walks through his restaurant, Mawn, after opening for the day in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Lorn, an admirer of San Francisco’s Yun, says he still feels imposter syndrome.

“I feel like I’m more Ray Liotta than Nite Yun,” said Lorn. “Whether we win or not, to me, honestly, I won already.”

Meanwhile, he is preparing to open a Southeast Asian oyster bar called Sao. It’s not intended to be Cambodian, just a reflection of him.

“I don’t want to be pigeonholed,” Lorn said. “And it’s not me turning from my people. It’s just me keeping it real for my people.”

Chef Phila Lorn speaks during an interview at his restaurant, Mawn, in Philadelphia, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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