• Eggplant Dirty Rice

    Eggplant Dirty Rice

    When I declared my pescatarianism last week, I was mostly being tongue-in-cheek because I was pretty sure it wouldn’t stick. I’m still not sure it’ll stick. But so far, it’s stuck, and at the same dinner party when I made that spring pea puree, I needed a vegetarian entree that would impress in a way…

  • Spring Pea Purée with Preserved Lemon

    Spring Pea Purée with Preserved Lemon

    Spring peas require patience. You have to take the time to go to the farmer’s market to find them and then you have to remove them from their pods. If you have a lazy afternoon ahead and you want to sit on your front porch rocking in a chair and chatting with neighbors, by all…

  • Reasons To Make Granola This Weekend

    Reasons To Make Granola This Weekend

    Wow, it’s Friday and boy did this week really fly by. Did you get through it ok? That’s interesting. Hey so you know what you should make this weekend? Granola! Have you ever made granola? You haven’t? My word. This is my favorite go-to granola recipe (it comes from the BAKED Cookbook) and many people…

  • 2 Deviled Eggs for 3 People

    2 Deviled Eggs for 3 People

    Sometimes you have a negative restaurant experience that stays with you for a really long time after the fact. This is one such experience illustrated by a very talented illustrator: me. This fall I went to a hip new restaurant, here in L.A., with my friends Jim and Jess. You might ask, “Which restaurant?” but…

  • The Best Restaurant Bathrooms in New York

    The Best Restaurant Bathrooms in New York

    This is my friend Justin, you may recognize him from his great work at Food & Wine Magazine. Last time I was in New York, I met Justin for drinks in midtown and afterwards we decided to grab dinner somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen. On the fancy end of the spectrum is Esca, one of New…

  • My Life As A Four-Day Pescatarian

    My Life As A Four-Day Pescatarian

    An outcast. A misfit. Persona non grata. That’s been my life ever since, four days ago, I became a pescatarian. True: I only made this declaration yesterday and, truth be told, it’ll probably end with an Umami Burger somewhere down the road. But you should’ve seen the horrified looks on my friends’ faces last night…

  • Healthy Egg Salad with Yogurt, Olives and Scallions

    Healthy Egg Salad with Yogurt, Olives and Scallions

    There’s egg salad with mayo, which is just normal egg salad, and then there’s another kind of egg salad, a healthier person’s egg salad, an egg salad that may make egg salad traditionalists recoil in horror: egg salad with yogurt. Well, think about it. Yogurt (especially low-fat Greek yogurt) is healthy. Eggs are pure protein.…

  • Vegas Recovery Salad

    Vegas Recovery Salad

    When you get back from a weekend of binging in Las Vegas, you might find that you really crave salad. Not the wimpy kind with delicate garden lettuces, but a big bowl of raw vegetables that promises to cure all your ills. If you were a cheffy chef your first instinct might be to go…

  • People Who Salt Their Food Without Tasting It First

    People Who Salt Their Food Without Tasting It First

    At Vegas Uncork’d, at the Border Grill lunch, a woman sitting near us received her first course, the corn arepa with lobster salsa and a fried egg and without touching it asked the waiter for some salt. The waiter paused for a quick second and then said, “sure,” returning moments later with a little dish…

  • The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie in the World

    The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie in the World

    How many cookies does the average person eat over the course of a lifetime? 500? 5,000? 5 MILLION? I’m not sure but since life is short, I believe it’s important to make your cookies count. Cracking open a box of Chips Ahoy might scratch an itch much like sleeping with a prostitute probably scratches a…