Writing about food since 2004.
Category
Recipes
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Penne with Broccoli Rabe
Broccoli rabe is usually the first thing I buy at the farmer’s market when the weather gets warmer. It’s a transitional vegetable: something that bridges us from the dark and murky vegetables of winter to the bright and sprightly vegetables of summer. Raw, it tastes rather fresh and green, but cooked, it takes on all…
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The Barefoot Contessa’s Wheat Berry Salad
There are many words one might use to describe me–“enthusiastic,” “smiley,” “mildly irritating”–but “hippie” probably isn’t one of them. Sure, I may walk around in sandals in the summer, but who doesn’t? And true, Janice is my favorite Muppet and my aunt Cindy (my dad’s sister) was photographed blowing a bubble at Woodstock (see here)…
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Susan Boyled Potatoes
If you’ve been alive in the last week, you’ve no doubt heard of Susan Boyle. She comes from Scotland–Blackburn, West Lothian to be exact–and has taken the world (and YouTube) by storm with her appearance on Britain’s Got Talent in which the audience, dubious of her looks, her dress and her speaking style, got put…
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Easy French Toast
There are three kinds of people in this world: pancake people, waffle people, and people who like French toast. I’d put myself in the middle category: I’m a waffle person. I like the texture of waffles, I like the little holes that catch the syrup, and I love the way they smell when they’re being…
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The Churros That Saved The Dinner Party
Have you ever had a son or daughter who plays the piano like a real champ, such a champ that you invite all your friends over one night and set up a little concert–with fliers and cocktaials and a video camera on a tripod–and when your son or daughter finally sits down to play they…
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Pasta alla Puttanesca
I hope you don’t consider it uncouth for me to talk about whores at such an early hour, especially on a Monday, but it’s impossible to write about Pasta Puttanesca without sounding like a cast member of The Sopranos. (If that’s the case, I should pronounce the word: “whoo-ore.”) You see, Pasta alla Puttanesca translates…
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Brown Butter Banana Bread
Inspiration strikes me more as a writer, than a cook. “Write a play about a parrot that saves a family from genocide,” says inspiration. “Thanks inspiration,” I say and go on to win five Tonys. But as a cook? I’m pretty uninspired, I’d have to say. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a happy cook, a…
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The River Cottage Roast Chicken
My go-to roast chicken recipe, that one from Chez Panisse (here’s a video I made on how to make it), is such a gut bomb of fat–and fat from just the chicken itself–that any roast chicken recipe that requires the addition of more fat (butter, olive oil) usually provokes my inner Richard Simmons who bursts…
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Gourmet Tuna Casserole
I found it. After my first attempt at tuna casserole, I finally found a worthy alternative. I was at the Community Book Store in Park Slope and there on the cookbook shelf was Andrew Carmellini’s Urban Italian, a pretty dazzling book of recipes from the former chef of A Voce. I took the book to…
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Wheat Berry Salad
There are two kinds of cravings: the bad kind and the good kind. Most of us are familiar with the bad kind: it sends us to Dunkin’ Donuts at 2 AM, keen on devouring a stale toasted coconut doughnut beneath the fluorescent glare. It’s the craving that forces hamburgers when you should be thinking salad,…
