Vegetarian Traditions
Stories • Recipes • Travel • Farms • Traditions
A Culinary Journal by Chef George Vutetakis
For more than fifty years, I’ve explored the people, places, and traditions behind remarkable plant-based food—from
San Diego and Michigan farmers’ markets and the Inn Season Café to villages in India and tropical farms in Peru.
I invite you to discover recipes, culinary travel, farming traditions, ingredient histories,
and the joy of cooking with nature’s abundance.
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Latest Stories
New recipes, culinary journeys, farmers, traditions
and stories from my kitchen.
Roasted Peach Ginger Compote
For generations, preserving the summer harvest has been one of the great culinary traditions of orchard regions around the world. While many peaches become jams, preserves, or pies, this roasted compote is my way of capturing the remarkable flavor of the Okanagan’s freestone peaches in one simple recipe that lets the fruit remain the star
Farm To Table With Don Cinzori
He didn’t just follow trends—he set them. Don dove deep into peppers and chiles, and I remember clearly when he was the first to grow Jimmy Nardello sweet frying peppers in our region. His tomatoes were unrivaled, his Sicilian purple eggplants practically glowed, and come fall, his squash selection was the stuff of legend. From kombucha and red kuri to specially selected sweet butternuts and buttercups—not to mention the enormous “sidewalk” Hubbard squash—his produce was always the best and most flavorful.
Roasted Baby Cauliflower
When cauliflower first appears at the farmers markets in Michigan, it is a sign that autumn is near. Neatly wrapped up in their green outer leaves, young cauliflower heads are stacked high on the tables when the market opens its doors. These “baby” cauliflowers are often very sweet and lighter in cruciferous flavors, which become bolder as they mature. Vegetables are often the stars of a meal when freshly harvested. They carry the identity of the soil, the touch of the farmer and, frequently, the dew from the morning’s harvest.
Hearts of Palm Farm & Ceviche
As beads of sweat trickled off us, the farmer calmly and expertly trimmed a palm frond down to the heart. Harvesting hearts of palm requires careful dexterity and thick leather gloves to protect hands from long thorns that can pierce the skin from many angles. The primary tool for harvesting is a very sharp machete-type blade for detailed skinning of the outer stalk in order to reveal the succulent inner heart.
Cranberry Bean Ragout
For this recipe, I used fresh cranberry beans at Food Field Farm’s stall in Detroit’s Eastern Market. Similar to pintos, they cook to a tender creamy texture. This recipe is a simple medley of vegetables and beans. If you can’t find fresh beans, cooked from dry or canned may be substituted.