Writing about food since 2004.
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Do-It-Yourself Dumplings
Brothers and sisters, I have seen the light! All these years, these years of reading Calvin Trillin (the poet laureate of dumplings) and fake nodding as my Manhattanite friends (ones who grew up here) debated dumpling dives, I faked an interest that didn’t really exist. You see, I didn’t really get the big deal. What’s…
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Heaven & Hell Cauliflower Pasta
White food is supposedly unappetizing. Tom Colicchio, on “Top Chef,” will mark down a plate of food if everything on it is white or beige. I see his point: there’s something almost clinical about a plate of white food. That’s why parsley’s such a useful ingredient to have around; it’s an easy color-solution, the flecks…
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How To Host A Vegetarian Dinner Party (Answer: Mushroom Bourguignon)
My friend Lisa was there at the very beginning of this blog. Six years ago, she and I would have debates about the worthiness of olives, we’d sing songs about pumpkin cake, and often we’d cook together. Then I moved far away to a country called Brooklyn and even though Lisa and I still saw…
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Spectacular Sweet Potato Soup (PLUS: Win a $450 VitaMix Blender)
A splash of this, a pinch of that: that’s the kind of cooking I’ve always wanted to do, but I’ve never been very good at it. Sure, I’ll sprinkle some cinnamon into my oatmeal and, yes, I’ll sex up a plate of pasta with some red chile flakes, but the ability to cook impulsively, to…
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6 Years
No need to make a fuss, but today’s the 6th anniversary of my blog. Six years ago, on January 14th, 2004 to be exact, I wrote the following words: “Are you sick of competency? Of food blogs run by competent people with flawless track records and no history of salmonella? Are you tired of not…
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The Best Tuna Sandwich in New York is at The New French
Recently, I had my friends Rob and Kath over for dinner. They live in our building and we were chatting about the neighborhood, our favorite places to eat and, inevitably, The New French came up. “You know it’s funny,” I said. “At first I didn’t love The New French, but recently I discovered their tuna…
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Caramelized-Apple Skillet Cake
I had the apples, I had the butter, I had the sugar, the vanilla extract, and even the cornmeal. Jimmy was coming to dinner (see here) and, with only an hour or two to prep, I knew there had to be dessert. So I yanked down Karen DeMasco’s newest book, The Craft of Baking, and…
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Food Writing 101
For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter, some exciting news: I’ll be teaching an online food writing class for the Gotham Writers’ Workhop next month. The class is eleven weeks, features direct feedback from yours truly on your writing samples, and–the coolest part–a workshop with New York Times food writer extraordinaire, Kim…
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How To Cook On A Budget
I didn’t grow up in a house with cooking, so food shopping was always a bit casual: a box of this, a bag of that. We’d have Fruit Roll-Ups in the cabinet and ice cream sandwiches in the freezer and so, when I became an adult and lived in my first adult apartment in college,…
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Thomas Keller’s Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables
Roasting a chicken is a very personal thing; those of us who are regular chicken roasters (and, in the winter, roasting a chicken is almost a weekly act for me) know what we like. For me, that’s a combination of fennel seeds, cayenne pepper, and kosher salt on the outside of the skin and thyme…
