Category

Recipes

  • 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….

  • Diana’s Birthday Lamb

    Diana’s Birthday Lamb

    Cooking a big meal for a friend’s birthday is something that I enjoy, especially when that friend is Diana. But, inevitably, the party will end, the dishes will be stacked in the sink and, most devastating for a food blogger like me, there will 1,000 pictures of the meal in my camera and I’ll feel…

  • Spiced Eggplant Salad

    Spiced Eggplant Salad

    Every relationship has rules. For example, in some relationships the person who makes dinner doesn’t have to do the dishes. In others, the person who cleans the bathroom doesn’t have to take out the garbage. In my relationship with Craig, there’s one overriding rule that must be obeyed or everything will crumble to pieces. That…

  • Strawberry Pancakes

    Strawberry Pancakes

    I never liked pancakes growing up (the syrup made them too soggy, I preferred waffles) but I like them now mostly because they’re easy to whip up on a Sunday morning, especially if you have one of the following dairy items on hand: buttermilk (most preferable), regular milk (also preferable) or, as I learned today,…

  • Rockin’ Ricotta

    Rockin’ Ricotta

    When you’ve been blogging for almost five years and many people read your blog, you start to receive things in the mail. Cookbooks, for example. I get many cookbooks in the mail, also general food books like books about oysters. I have a book about oysters on my shelf that I’ve never read. Sometimes, though,…

  • Tuesday Techniques: Cheese Soufflé

    Tuesday Techniques: Cheese Soufflé

    We all remember those episodes of bad sitcoms where a character would be making a soufflé and insist that everyone stay quiet in the kitchen lest their precious prize collapse. Then, of course, an Urkel or a Punky would knock over a tray of pots and pans, the soufflé-maker would cry out and hilarity would…

  • Abbaye de Citeaux, The Soon-To-Be-Forbidden Cheese

    Abbaye de Citeaux, The Soon-To-Be-Forbidden Cheese

    I was wary of getting an iPhone because I didn’t want to be so reachable. With just a plain, ordinary cellphone I get enough calls; with an iPhone I’d also get buzzed every time I got an e-mail. And with all the PR e-mails I get to my Amateur Gourmet e-mail address that’s a lot…