• Mystical, Magical Curry Leaves

    Mystical, Magical Curry Leaves

    The other day I was in Atwater Village driving past a large Indian grocery store called India Sweets and Spices. I decided to do a very sensible thing: I parked my car and went inside. In the front, there’s an actual restaurant where you get food from a counter and the food looked pretty good.…

  • Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake

    Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake

    The question often comes up: “Do you like baking more than savory cooking? Or the other way around?” I always give a thoughtful, complicated answer but there’s a much easier way to address the question: look to your right, scroll down. See where it says Recipes By Category? Look at the numbers. 36 salads. 22…

  • Steve’s Sous-Vide Salmon Adventure

    Steve’s Sous-Vide Salmon Adventure

    [Back in December, Craig was shooting his movie in New York and Craig’s parents came to visit the set. While we were hanging out, I received an e-mail from a company called Sous Vide Supreme offering to send me a “demi” Sous Vide machine to write about on my blog. I politely refused (don’t have…

  • The Best Brownies of Your Life

    The Best Brownies of Your Life

    Here they are, the brownies I’ve always wanted and never found. I didn’t know my brownie life was lacking; for years, I’d been melting chocolate in a double boiler along with some butter to make the Martha Stewart version. Those were always good. So were all the other brownie recipes I attempted with a similar…

  • Things You Can Do With A Big Pot of Beans (Or: My Take on the Mediterranean Diet)

    Things You Can Do With A Big Pot of Beans (Or: My Take on the Mediterranean Diet)

    The New York Times recently published an article with a powerful first sentence: “About 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits and vegetables, and even drink wine with…

  • Marion Cunningham’s Last Word in Nutmeg Muffins

    Marion Cunningham’s Last Word in Nutmeg Muffins

    If one day I go on trial for food crimes, I think I’m getting 20 years added to my sentence for the following: during my 3 months on New York’s Upper East Side, I never once–not ONCE–visited the famous Kitchen Arts and Letters, one of the city’s (and the country’s) greatest cookbook stores. I still…

  • Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote and the Minetta Tavern Black Label Burger

    Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote and the Minetta Tavern Black Label Burger

    Pull up a chair, I’m going to tell you a funny, though slightly depressing, story. See, on Valentine’s Day, I was alone in New York. Craig would be coming a few days later and, in the meantime, I decided to spend the night seeing a play I’d always wanted to see: David Ives’ “All In…

  • You Really Ought To See Babette’s Feast

    You Really Ought To See Babette’s Feast

    Watching a movie is tricky business when you’re dating a filmmaker. It’s never just a casual, “Let’s just throw something in the DVD player” kind of deal; it’s usually a: “Would you rather watch Wild Strawberries or Piranha 3-D?” Luckily, my resident filmmaker is in New York editing his own movie and I have total…

  • Beets of the Southern Wild with Candied Quvenzhané Walnuts

    Beets of the Southern Wild with Candied Quvenzhané Walnuts

    Last year, I suffered the greatest humiliation of my life–well, except for that time I got pantsed while roller skating on a Jewish teen tour–when my Glenn Cous Cous Salad with Albert Knobs of Feta lost the Best Oscar Dish contest to Tinker Tailor Shepherd’s Pie. This was at a party hosted by my friends…

  • I Love My New Pot Rack (PLUS: A Kitchen Makeover)

    I Love My New Pot Rack (PLUS: A Kitchen Makeover)

    Is it possible to love an inanimate object? Was Johnny 5 really alive? These are questions for philosophers, not food bloggers. All I know is that I love my new pot rack. It all came about because Craig had been complaining about how disorganized our kitchen was and so, for his birthday, I decided to…