• Brittany Cake Aux Pruneaux

    Brittany Cake Aux Pruneaux

    The Neverending Story was one of my favorite childhood movies. I loved the back and forth between Sebastian eating his peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the attic of his school and young Atreyu on his white horse (well, not for long…Artax!) journeying to kill The Nothing. Mostly, though, I loved the idea of this…

  • Daube de Boeuf (Beef Braised in Red Wine)

    Daube de Boeuf (Beef Braised in Red Wine)

    It’s inauguration day and also Martin Luther King Day and here I am sharing a French recipe. Before you label me a communist, I hope you know this is entirely coincidental. On Friday, I made dinner for a few friends and while thumbing through my cookbooks searching for an entree, the dish that really caught…

  • New York Brunches at Allswell and Calliope

    New York Brunches at Allswell and Calliope

    When I lived in New York, I swore off brunch. “Brunch is for idiots!” I declared. “You wait forever, you spend a fortune, and for what? Food you can make just as good at home for way less money.” That’s why there are so many entries on my Breakfast Recipes page: I mostly make brunch…

  • Pink Grapefruit Halves and Those Who Love Them

    Pink Grapefruit Halves and Those Who Love Them

    2013 is the year of pink grapefruit halves. I don’t mean that in a broad sense, like a trend prediction, I mean that in a personal sense. This year is a year in which I’ve already eaten my weight in pink grapefruit halves and it all started, appropriately enough, on New Year’s Eve day with…

  • Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

    Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

    The other night I was very cold so I made a hot chocolate. My method for a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants hot chocolate is pretty simple: I warm milk, whisk in unsweetened cocoa powder and a bit of sugar. I taste and allow it to thicken a bit at a simmer. Then, at the last minute, I add…

  • Carnitas Tacos with Green Salsa and Pico de Gallo

    Carnitas Tacos with Green Salsa and Pico de Gallo

    To understand my Mexican food expertise, consider this: when I was younger, I took several cruises with my family that brought us to Mexico. Cozumel, mostly. Upon arriving in Mexico, my family would immediately trek to the center of town where my mom would shop for jewelry and my brother, dad and I would stand…

  • Nine Years

    Nine Years

    Nine years ago I wrote this and my life changed. Thank you all for continuing to make this blog a place where I can share recipes, tell emotional stories, make cartoons about trips to fancy restaurants, write songs, reenact the fall of Saigon from “Miss Saigon” with eggs in my microwave and procure advice about…

  • Chicken Liver Toast & The Secret To A Good Chicken Salad

    Chicken Liver Toast & The Secret To A Good Chicken Salad

    For as long as I’ve been roasting chickens (and I roast chickens all the time) I’ve been throwing away the liver that comes stuffed inside, along with the giblets, because–well–I don’t know: am I supposed to cook and eat that thing? Well, yes. I mean not all the time. But they don’t put it in…

  • Leftover Broccoli Sauce

    Leftover Broccoli Sauce

    You know that thing where you buy two big bunches of broccoli for dinner one night and then you only end up using one bunch so the other bunch sits in your refrigerator in a plastic bag for a week? And then, one week later, you look at it and kind of feel sorry for…

  • Lebanese Chickpea Stew

    Lebanese Chickpea Stew

    The first post of 2013 has to be a winner–that’s a rule–and so it’s a huge relief to share with you a dish that I made for dinner the other night that’s such a winner, it portends very good things for the year to come. I’m at the point now where I can read a…