Category

Recipes

  • Concord Grape Syrup

    Concord Grape Syrup

    There’s a world of difference between an unhappy accident and a happy accident. An unhappy accident is, well, not the kind of accident you talk about on a food blog; a happy accident, on the other hand, results in a sweet treat that you never expected, like Concord grape syrup.

  • Molly’s Slow Roasted Tomatoes (Pomodori al Forno)

    Molly’s Slow Roasted Tomatoes (Pomodori al Forno)

    A journey of a thousand miles may begin with one step, but a recipe of several steps begins with precisely 2,408 miles. Specifically: the distance from New York to Seattle. It was on the plane from New York to Seattle that I read last month’s Bon Appetit magazine which featured our friend Molly Orangette’s recipe…

  • Nectarine Tart

    Nectarine Tart

    I am a nectarine tart and I am easy to make. I am adapted from Amanda Hesser’s “Cooking For Mr. Latte” (her recipe is for a peach tart) but, if you ask me, I’m much prettier than a peach tart. A peach tart would be a homogeneous glop of orangey yellow fruit; I, on the…

  • Cranberry Beans

    Cranberry Beans

    My first experience with cranberry beans was a failed attempt at a soup (see here) where dried cranberry beans were cooked for an inappropriate amount of time, leading to a texture so unpleasantly undercooked it was like eating unpopped popcorn kernels. The years have passed, but the scars took a while to heal: I wasn’t…

  • Pickled Yellow Wax Beans

    Pickled Yellow Wax Beans

    Ask someone if they want chocolate cake, chances are they’ll say: “Ya-huh!” Ask someone if they want a pickled wax bean, their reaction may not be so kind. I learned this the hard way after making a jar of pickled yellow wax beans from the Park Slope farmer’s market a few weeks ago. The recipe…

  • Salt and Pepper Shrimp

    Salt and Pepper Shrimp

    Let’s talk about shrimp, baby, let’s talk about you and me… Ok, that was a Salt-N-Pepa joke. If you don’t get that joke, click here (I couldn’t embed it!) Now then, salt and pepper shrimp. What are they? I’d never had them until I went to Brooklyn Fish Camp last week with Robbie Baitz. They…

  • Burrata

    Burrata

    Bar Pitti in the West Village is a reasonably-priced restaurant; you can get pastas there for close to $10 that rival some of the better pastas in the city (I especially admire their eponymous pasta, one that involves sausage, tomatoes and cream.) However, two weeks ago, I found an item on their menu to be…

  • Spaghetti Carbonara For Beginners

    Spaghetti Carbonara For Beginners

    I frequently have to remind myself that there was a time when any exotic-sounding, technique-heavy recipe would fill me with terror. Cook the pasta until al dente? How will I know when it’s al dente? Toast the garlic until golden brown? What’s golden brown? How’s that different from brown brown? And by facing my fears…

  • Two Summery Meals

    Two Summery Meals

    Here are two meals you can make this weekend: one, a meal of farmer’s market goodies that are seasonal and good for you and good for the planet and the farmers, and the second a crowd-pleaser from your local grocery store that isn’t good for you or the planet but boy is it good and…

  • Braised Pork Chops and Cabbage (A Poem)

    Braised Pork Chops and Cabbage (A Poem)

    An easy dinner, one two three Try it out: listen to me; Buy some pork chops, one for each Dry them off like your kid at the beach; Heat some oil and some butter Season the pork chops til you hear a sputter….