While baked beans are rarely the star of any meal, they quite often are the favorite supporting dish. Canned beans are just great, but I'm struck by how easy it is to make your own, and custom tune them to your own taste and creativity. To Chef Jerry Pellegrino, the concept of baked beans does allow for endless variations.

These days I couldn't be happier. Football season is back and all the tradition and pageantry of the sport is in full swing. And of course that includes tail-gating, that All-American celebration of sport and wretched excess. I was curious what Chef Jerry Pellegrino might have to offer to the party?

In an effort to establish a healthier diet my wife and I have resolved to eat more fish. I still have a lot to learn about cooking fish, but I am already pretty proficient in making sauces. So I asked Chef Jerry Pellegrino, if a sauce for fish might be a good bit different than a sauce for meat, correct?

As an avid gardener I know how much pleasure my garden can be when it's in full bloom. It's a feast for the eyes, and it always improves my mood just to gaze upon it. My colleague Chef Jerry Pellegrino will take that concept of floral beauty one step further by putting some flowers right on the plate.

I'm very familiar with Chef Jerry Pellegrino's penchant for pickling late season produce to keep it available for the cold winter months. But on the many cooking shows we watch; you always see competing chefs whipping up a pickle in just seconds... or so it seems. So, I asked Jerry to tell me how is pickling for the table different?

During the Covid pandemic a lot of us tried our hand at baking and all around the country grocery stores were running out of flour and yeast. Well, there's more than one way to bake a loaf of bread, and more than one grain we can use. Chef Jerry Pellegrino, has dug back into history and came up with some ancient grains.

A while ago when we were in England, we had a wonderful dish the restaurant called "white bouillabaisse". It bore a passing resemblance to the Provencal original, but it was a delightful take on it. Chef Jerry Pellegrino helped me flesh out this idea of making this dish.

With cook-out season in full swing many of us are eager to move beyond simple burgers and hot dogs and try something a little more involved. Enter the marinade, a popular method of increasing flavor in things that we grill while at the same time bringing a little tenderness into the picture. As I told Chef Jerry Pellegrino, I know what a marinade is but I'm not sure how it works.

A few weeks ago we were having dinner with a friend who had cooked a beautiful leg of lamb. Staying in a traditional mode, he also had prepared mint sauce, but this wasn’t the jelly kind, this was the real deal. Chef Jerry Pellegrino will tell you, when it comes to herb-based sauces, mint is just the beginning.

There's no doubt about it; we love anything creamy that crosses our palate. I can remember my first Panna Cotta in Italy, and I was immediately seduced by its rich creamy texture. Chef Jerry Pellegrino points out to us, there are so many other ways of getting something creamy on a spoon.One of the first great desserts you'll come across when you start dining out on French cuisine is Crème Brulé. The combination of the brittle sugar topping and the creamy pudding underneath is irresistible. Closely related to it is Crème Caramel, which literally turns the recipe on its head. And of course, the Italian delight Panna Cotta achieves that perfect creaminess in an entirely different way.Here are Jerry's recipes for each.