Category

  • Three Smoke Alarm Chicken, Sausage, and Broccoli Rabe

    Three Smoke Alarm Chicken, Sausage, and Broccoli Rabe

    As far as arrivals to one of my dinner parties go, last night was maybe the most dramatic of all time. I was making a chicken and sausage dish from Nancy Silverton’s under-appreciated cookbook Mozza at Home (I seriously consider it one of the best cookbooks to come out in recent years) and I’d cranked…

  • Toss Your Beans in Pesto

    Toss Your Beans in Pesto

    There’s a lot of treachery when it comes to substitutions in recipes. “Hide sweet potatoes in the brownies, your kids will never notice!” “These zucchini noodles taste just as good as real noodles but with half the calories!” Me? I’m all for transparency when it comes to the things that I cook. And that’s why…

  • Come Join The Fun on Instagram

    Come Join The Fun on Instagram

    Hello there, you’re probably wondering where I’ve been these first few months of 2018, and the answer is: INSTAGRAM. If you’re not following me there, download the app and look me up: @amateurgourmet. It’s just a much easier way for me to share my cooking adventures, and also much more exciting, especially with the stories…

  • Pork Belly and Smoked Sausage Cassoulet

    Pork Belly and Smoked Sausage Cassoulet

    The last time (and only time) I’ve ever made cassoulet, it was a bit of a Noah’s Ark affair. There was duck, there was sausage, there was bacon. My cup, quite literally, was runneth over with meat and beans. Cassoulet is meant to be a hefty dish and, as a general rule, the bigger your…

  • Paris Highlights

    Paris Highlights

    Travel is a funny thing. The more you build it up in your head, the less likely you are to do it. Which is why, a few months ago, when our friends Harry and Cris told us that they were going to France for Christmas and New Year’s (Cris is from Bordeaux), I spontaneously suggested…

  • My Ten Favorite Dishes That I Cooked in 2017

    My Ten Favorite Dishes That I Cooked in 2017

    Was this the best cooking year of my life? (Oh no, there I go saying “best” again.) But, looking back on the past 365 days, I feel like I really came into my own this year in the kitchen. Gone are all the old insecurities that fueled this blog in the first place. Now, I…

  • My Favorite Restaurant Meals of 2017

    My Favorite Restaurant Meals of 2017

    When you’ve been food blogging for long enough, your old posts can act as your own personal culinary archives. What was I eating in December of 2010? The answer is just a few clicks away. (Looks like it was spaghetti and gingerbread cake.) There’s a gap, now, in that data from July 2015 to September…

  • A Response From America’s Test Kitchen

    A Response From America’s Test Kitchen

    After posting yesterday’s post about applesauce and “best recipes,” I woke up to an e-mail this morning from Tucker Shaw, who’s the new editor-in-chief of Cook’s Country at America’s Test Kitchen. Tucker’s actually been a long-time supporter of my blog (a blurb of his is featured on my first book) and I had no idea…

  • There Is No Such Thing As The Best Recipe

    There Is No Such Thing As The Best Recipe

    OK, I’m going to tell you a secret, and maybe it’s an obvious secret, one that you already know (especially since it’s the title of this post), but I also think it’s a secret most people don’t want to acknowledge: there is no such thing as the best recipe. Now I say this as someone…

  • Cyber Monday at Trois Mec

    Cyber Monday at Trois Mec

    I had a very good Cyber Monday, if I do say so myself. My KitchenAid mixer has been in decline every since that time, years ago, that I was using it to knead bread dough and heard a giant BOOM in the kitchen, only to discover it had toppled on to the floor, cracking a…