• Porcini-Cooked Rigatoni w/Tomatoes and More Porcini

    Porcini-Cooked Rigatoni w/Tomatoes and More Porcini

    Nowadays, when I make a new recipe, there has to be something about it that really draws my interest. If it’s just a roast chicken with butter rubbed on it and some herbs stuffed under the skin? Eh, been there done that. But if it’s something really novel, but not overly novel, color me intrigued.…

  • An Omelette and a Glass of Wine (For Dinner)

    An Omelette and a Glass of Wine (For Dinner)

    Elizabeth David has a famous book called An Omelette and a Glass of Wine that, I’m embarassed to say, I’ve never read. Still: I’m aware of it. So aware, in fact, that last week when I came home from the gym, exhausted, I decided to put that title into action. I had eggs from the…

  • 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…