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  • The Best Chili of Your Life

    The Best Chili of Your Life

    If Craig had his way, this post wouldn’t have this title. I just asked him, “Would you call the chili I made the other day the best of your life?” And he answered: “I don’t even think of it as chili because there weren’t any beans; just lots of meat and stuff. But it was…

  • Thomas Keller’s Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables

    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…

  • Sunday Gravy

    Sunday Gravy

    The thing about Thanksgiving is that people have expectations. They expect some kind of squash soup, they expect turkey, of course, and stuffing and taters (mashed and sweet) and all kinds of pies for dessert. Maybe that’s why I don’t like cooking it: the element of surprise is fairly limited (“Oooh look, he put cranberries…

  • The Best Casserole Ever

    The Best Casserole Ever

    Hyperbole is a dangerous tool for food bloggers. Yes, it’s easy to call something “the best” this or “the most amazing” that but do it too often, and you start to lose credibility. “If everything’s the best,” you might think, “then what makes this one any more special?” Fair enough, ungentle reader, fair enough. But…

  • Sweet and Sour Chicken

    Sweet and Sour Chicken

    My proudest kitchen moments are the ones where I am at my most resourceful. On Sunday, I opened my refrigerator to find two raw chicken breasts leftover from a chicken segment we shot for food2.com. The easy option would’ve been to roast them in the oven (I was going to write “bake them in the…

  • Coq au Vin

    Coq au Vin

    Dear New York Weather: it’s almost June, and yesterday I was wearing a sweatshirt and I had the heat on. And it’s almost June! I understand you have your peculiarities, that you’re grappling with a diminishing ozone and toxic emissions, but I bought some cute new short sleeve shirts from UniQlo in SoHo (what a…

  • How To Roast A Duck

    How To Roast A Duck

    Certain foods are meant to be cooked at home: roast chicken, pot roast, spaghetti and meatballs. Other foods are meant to be eaten out: steak tartare, sushi, a flaming baked Alaska. Sure we can make those latter foods at home, but often times they’re not worth the hassle or the danger (raw steak at home?…

  • The River Cottage Roast Chicken

    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…

  • Gourmet Tuna Casserole

    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…

  • Tuna Noodle Casserole

    Tuna Noodle Casserole

    The chat went something like this. Craig-At-Work: What’s for dinner? Me-At-Home: I’m thinking of making a tuna noodle casserole. Craig-At-Work: Ugh. If I never eat a tuna noodle casserole again for the rest of my life, that’d be ok. Me-At-Home: Well I’ve never had one before so I’m going to make it, just for the…