Gretchen McKay

Like many in Pittsburgh’s Greek community, Panayiotis Liokareas grew up eating and cooking with extra-virgin olive oil, both at home and on summer visits to his paternal grandfather’s sun-baked olive groves in Kalamata, Greece. Known for its exceptional taste and healthful dietary fat, EVOO is a cornerstone of the Mediterranean diet. A flavor booster in […]

These days, when it’s tougher than ever to make a living off the land, Shenot Farm and Market is flourishing. The Shenots have growing fruits and vegetables on the same 100-plus hilly acres in Marshall for more than 150 years, ever since Christopher Scheno and his wife, Margreta, emigrated from Alsace-Lorraine in France with their […]

Gisele Fetterman helps her son August, 4, get ready for school at their home in Braddock. (Alexandra Wimley/Post-Gazette) The line of new and expectant mothers stretched a half block down Braddock Avenue by the time Gisele Fetterman opened the doors of a former-pharmacy-turned-business-incubator at 5 p.m. and welcomed in the smiling faces. Inside was a […]

LOWELLVILLE, Ohio — Nancy Grapevine and her sister, Marilee Pilkington, have been making their mother’s wedding soup for longer than they can remember. Like any self-respecting Italian cooks, they think it’s the best. Award-winning, even, which is why on a recent Saturday, they braved a wicked winter blast that dumped several inches of snow on […]

On what some thought would be the one-year anniversary of its failing, Superior Motors in Braddock is humming along on all cylinders. Even before the 80-seat restaurant across the street from Edgar Thomson Works celebrated its first birthday on July 15, it was named one of the best new restaurants of 2018 in the country by Food […]

Slava Martyn never could have imagined that one day he’d find God, in Homestead, by baking bread. With a pastry brush dipped in egg wash, he leans over the pan of uncooked dough in front of him. With the delicate yet precise hand of an artist, he paints the loaf’s bumpy surface until the entire […]

During the Steelers’ summer training camp, the Community Center Dining Hall at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe is the stuff big eaters dream of. Indecisive souls feeling ravenously hungry could go crazy mulling its many menu choices, which features a cornucopia of lean meats and fish, garden-fresh vegetables, orb after orb of plump seasonal fruit. […]

Megan Kruth still doesn’t know what sent her flying over her bike’s handlebars on Aug. 4, 2013. The Ironman triathlete and 17-time All-American collegiate swimmer had done training rides on that stretch of Babcock Boulevard near her McCandless townhouse hundreds of times. But that Sunday morning, she probably hit a bump in the pavement. When […]

Nick Ambeliotis never doubted his life’s work would revolve around food. The Ohio native grew up working for his father, Mike, in the corner grocery store he started after World War II in Warren, near the Pennsylvania border. After graduating with an accounting degree from John Carroll University in 1982, he helped turn the store […]

Kim McLaughin crafts some mighty fine spirits in the abandoned party house he’s been renovating the past year in Sewickley Hills. It’s an avocation turned vocation that’s totally hip but not all that surprising for an easy-going outdoors-type whose roots are in rural farming. Following a four-year stint in the Marines after high school, the […]