Writing about food since 2004.
Category
Recipes
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Key Lime Pie
It’s Father’s Day this weekend and no dessert makes me think more of my dad than Key Lime Pie. The association isn’t based on any particular memory; it’s based on a series of memories of dinners at steakhouses or seafood restaurants where my mom would be taking too long tearing apart her lobster, my dad…
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Dijon and Cognac Beef Stew
Cooking out of season is a little more acceptable on the west coast, where seasons are peripheral. Yes, it got a little chilly out here in L.A. in January and February; I was wearing long sleeves in March, but life didn’t change the way life changes so dramatically when it gets cold back east. So…
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Braised Endive
It was just a small rectangle on the cheese plate at The French Laundry; a single bite of braised endive to complement the other elements on the plate (apricot, a square of pistachio cake, a sour ale gastrique). But that single bite stayed with me. It was memorable because endive, which is normally bitter, becomes…
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Vanilla Bean Pudding
Let’s talk pudding. It doesn’t sound sexy like “panna cotta” or sophisticated like “pot de crem.” It sounds like the kind of thing you eat out of a plastic container with an aluminum peel on top which, for many people who grew up with Billy Cosby shilling for it on TV, it very much is.…
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Purple Lunchtime Salad & Cherry Tomato Quinoa Tabbouleh
Last week something unprecedented happened. I was having a new friend over for dinner and, after shopping at 3 o’clock and starting to cook at 4 o’clock, I found myself at 8 o’clock holding my cellphone and a text message from this new friend saying that he had a work emergency and wouldn’t be able…
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Chicken Adobo
This is it, kids. This has to be the last recipe I share from April Bloomfield’s new book, A Girl and Her Pig, or pretty soon I’ll look like that pig slung over her shoulder on the book’s cover (slaughtered for divulging too many cookbook recipes). If you’ve tried any of the recipes I’ve posted…
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The Build-A-Better-Bagel Workshop
Our friends Patty and Lauren, who visited us recently from New York, did us the huge service–a mitzvah, as the Jews might say–of bringing along bagels from Murray’s Bagels. We’ve been experiencing something of a bagel blight here on the west coast (remember those Bagel Bombs I made?) and these bagels came as a great…
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PG Tips (A Morning Tea Ritual)
Recently a friend (who shall remain nameless (John K.)) compared me to an “old lady” because I described my new morning routine: I make toast and I make tea. Tea and toast. I’ve described the toast to you, but not the tea. I started with Harney & Sons but as that started to run out,…
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Yesterday’s Beans Are Today’s Bruschetta Topping
This post combines three recent posts into one scrumptious bite: (1) Rancho Gordo beans; (2) My Love Affair with Toast; and (3) My Very Own Herb Garden. Let’s start with the toast: instead of a jam-topped breakfast concoction, this toast moves in a more savory direction. I toasted it just like normal (I couldn’t cut…
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Hushpuppies (A Recipe)
I have a distinct memory of a spring day in New York, back when I lived in Park Slope, at Brooklyn Fish Camp. Craig and I were sitting outside at a picnic table with benches and under that warm blue sky, the first of its kind after a harsh winter, a waitress presented us with…
