Recipes and food adventures with Adam Roberts

  • My Worst Restaurant Experience Ever

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    It’s not every day that you have your worst restaurant experience ever. Mine happened a few weeks ago, upon my return from Seattle and Cape Cod. Literally: it was my first meal back and the food gods rightly punished me for making a waste of it.Park Slope has two sushi joints I frequent: one is…

  • Tim Horton & Frank Pepe

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    Tim Horton & Frank Pepe

    Beware: when driving back from Cape Cod to New York, be wary of any Canadians or Yalies in your car. In our case, we had Dara (a Canadian) and Amir (a Yalie) both of whom were responsible for thousands of calories consumed against my innocent, food-shirking will. Why must food obsessives force me, a health-nut,…

  • How To Cook For A Group

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    How To Cook For A Group

    Journeys of self-discovery are often internal; we go to the desert, we go to the beach, we go to the forest, and, in our solitude, we unlock secrets from the past, untapped desires, revelations about who we are and why we are the way we are. Other times, journeys of self-discovery are external: case in…

  • Nectarine Tart

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    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

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    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…

  • Dinner at Fairway Cafe

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    Dinner at Fairway Cafe

    My friend Lisa recently moved to her own apartment on the Upper West Side and before I left for my trip, I went uptown to see the place, to give it my blessing (I smashed a bottle of Bartles & James on the door), and to join her for dinner. “Where should we go?” asked…

  • My Dungeness Crab Adventure

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    My Dungeness Crab Adventure

    Let’s say you’re growing up in Boca Raton, Florida and you’re looking at a map and someone says to you, “Point to a place in America that seems the most exotic to you, the most far away?” there’s a good chance you might point to Washington State. After all, it’s pretty much as far as…

  • The War & Peace of Tomatoes

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    The War & Peace of Tomatoes

    [The Amateur Gourmet is on vacation and, while he’s gone, he’s asked his friends to cover for him. Our final guest poster is not only a dear friend of Adam’s, but she’s watching his cat while he’s away! Please give a warm welcome to Stella Ragsdale. Stella just got back from spending the summer on…

  • A Sweetbreads Po-Boy

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    A Sweetbreads Po-Boy

    [The Amateur Gourmet is on vacation and, while he’s gone, he’s asked his friends to cover for him. While he hasn’t actually met Scott Gold, The Shameless Carnivore (check out his book!), he is connected to Scott through Scott’s friend Brandon who is the brother of Rena, Craig’s childhood friend who you’ve met many times…

  • Let’s Make Raclette

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    Let’s Make Raclette

    [The Amateur Gourmet is on vacation and, while he’s gone, he’s asked his friends to cover for him. You remember Adam’s friend John Kaslauskas as the friend he went to Paris with three years ago. John had such a fantastic time that now he’s living in Europe for three months, where he’s eating, marathon training…