Recipes and food adventures with Adam Roberts

  • Psychedelic Purple Risotto

    ,

    |

    Psychedelic Purple Risotto

    Cooking is a lot like writing in many ways; the further along I get as both a writer and a cook, the more I notice the similarities. For example, in both writing and cooking, clarity is key. You can fill a sentence with lots of high-falutin words, just like you can fill a dish with…

  • I Roasted Some Vegetables And They Were Good

    ,

    |

    I Roasted Some Vegetables And They Were Good

    It’s so funny to think about how recipe-obsessed I was when I started cooking. I mean, seriously, if a recipe called for a teaspoon of salt, I’d practically count the granules. Now I rarely cook with a recipe and it’s hard for me to imagine following a recipe to the letter. Which is why getting…

  • Mastering The Art of Roast Chicken

    |

    Mastering The Art of Roast Chicken

    Here was the deal: my favorite roast chicken recipe is this one from Thomas Keller. (Sidebar: I’m currently in San Francisco and last night I ate at Zuni, and as I was leaving the bathroom who did I lock eyes with? Thomas Keller. Turns out he goes to the bathroom too; food gods are just…

  • Happy Birthday, Grandma

    |

    Happy Birthday, Grandma

    Today’s my grandma Ronnie’s 85th birthday. And though she doesn’t have a computer, my grandfather gets my blog on his Kindle; so hopefully he’ll read this to her tomorrow morning when she wakes up. For most of my life, my grandmother has been a major presence. Legend goes that just as I started speaking, she…

  • Lunch at Petit Trois

    , , ,

    |

    Lunch at Petit Trois

    Is it possible to go to Paris with your friend Diana, eat yourself silly, then come back from Paris to L.A. only to have a French meal just as good as, if not better than, anything you ate 6,000 miles away? The answer is yes and it happened at Petit Trois where Diana and I…

  • The Best Apple Pie I’ve Ever Made

    , , ,

    |

    The Best Apple Pie I’ve Ever Made

    Memorize this fact about apple pie making, and you’ll be set for life: it’s not about the recipe, it’s about your state of mind. That nugget comes from Craig’s dad, the master of apple pie (see here), who’s said to me, in the past: “I think you’re overthinking it.” And in the past I had…

  • Restaurants That Do The Right Thing

    |

    Restaurants That Do The Right Thing

    That sandwich you see towering above you is called the Stella Hero from Stella Barra Pizza, where Craig and I went for lunch before seeing Gone Girl this past Sunday. The question isn’t “what’s in that thing?”, the question is: “What isn’t in that thing?” It’s got smoked ham, turkey, capicola (cured pork shoulder), tomato,…

  • Richard Kramer’s These Things Happen

    |

    Richard Kramer’s These Things Happen

    The older I get, the more my taste has shifted from the realm of CLEVER to the realm of HEART. In my 20s, I devoured books like Pale Fire and A Confederacy of Dunces; in my 30s, I get more excited when a book moves me to tears than when it makes me chuckle knowingly.…

  • My New Favorite Fall Salad

    ,

    |

    My New Favorite Fall Salad

    Sometimes there’s a salad that you like, but don’t love, and then you change a few things about it and suddenly it’s your new favorite salad. That’s what happened with this salad, a familiar combination of apples and fennel and walnuts and golden raisins and arugula. It’s one you can probably find in my archives…

  • Corn Soup As Pure As Gold

    ,

    |

    Corn Soup As Pure As Gold

    There’s a corn soup that you need to know about before the corn goes away and, sadly, the corn’s going away pretty soon. Grab some, OK? The sweet stuff. You’re about to make a corn soup that’s so good even people who hate corn soup–CRAIG’S PARENTS–will declare it wonderful. (I didn’t know Craig’s parents hated…