Category

Desserts

  • Chocolate Mousse

    Chocolate Mousse

    There is only one dessert to eat after Coq au Vin and that dessert is chocolate mousse. Now, if you’re anything like me and you love the movie “Rosemary’s Baby” you won’t pronounce that chocolate mousse, you’ll pronounce it “chocolate mouse” employing your best Ruth Gordon voice. (If you have no idea what I’m talking…

  • Asparagus & Rhubarb

    Asparagus & Rhubarb

    I used to be very confused about seasonal food. I understood the basic idea–that you should buy food when it’s in season, at its peak–but what I didn’t understand is that because most supermarkets in America stock these “seasonal” foods all-year round (tomatoes and watermelon in winter), the only real way to experience seasonal food…

  • Banana Cake

    Banana Cake

    I made the banana cake of my dreams this weekend, a banana cake so good I had to give half of it away because I knew I would eat it all. What made it so good? It was a homey, cozy, PTA bake sale kind of cake; there was nothing fussy about it, no caramelized…

  • The Churros That Saved The Dinner Party

    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…

  • “Baked” Oatmeal Cookies with Cardamom

    “Baked” Oatmeal Cookies with Cardamom

    The title of this post is a misrepresentation: the recipe I’m about to share does not advertise the fact that it contains cardamom. In fact, the recipe–from my new favorite baking book, Baked: New Frontiers in Baking–is titled “Oatmeal Cherry Nut Cookies,” a title that doesn’t mention cardamom at all. But cardamom was what caught…

  • How To Make An Apple Pie

    How To Make An Apple Pie

    Some of us have Oedipal complexes, others have Electra complexes, but very few of us have a complex based on apple pie. Allow me to lay on your therapist’s couch for a moment: I have a serious pie issue. My apple pie is inadequate–it comes from Martha Stewart–and though it often inspires a happy nod…

  • Katy’s Reindeer Cupcakes

    Katy’s Reindeer Cupcakes

    My friend Katy is this blog’s godmother: she and her husband Josh were the ones who inspired me to start it five years ago. Just today, I noticed something awesome: Katy made reindeer cupcakes and posted them on her Facebook profile. Ironically, Katy–the food blog inspirer–does not have a food blog of her own so…

  • Almond Cake in a Food Processor

    Almond Cake in a Food Processor

    You know the author photos you see on the back flap of cookbooks? Imagine if one of them started talking to you. That’s how I felt last week when I announced on Twitter that I was making Amanda Hesser’s almond cake (one of my all-time favorite desserts, recipe here) and Amanda Hesser herself, who’s a…

  • 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…

  • Tuesday Techniques: French Apple Tart

    Tuesday Techniques: French Apple Tart

    I would like to begin this week’s “Tuesday Techniques” column–a column which appears regularly on Wednesdays–with a discussion of the word “technique.” I think people are intimidated by the word. It implies a “right-wrong” dynamic, something hammered home by Tom Colicchio on “Top Chef” when he criticizes improper technique. “You don’t know how to cut…