• The Warm Chocolate Chip Cookie at Jacques Torres

    The Warm Chocolate Chip Cookie at Jacques Torres

    Citizens of America, it is my duty to inform you about something unholy, something sinful that is going on in that wicked city known as New York. Deep in the bowels of a village known as “West” is a veritable Sodom & Gomorrah of chocolate whose creator, a Frenchman!, is trying to tempt our children…

  • Tortilleria Nixtamal

    Tortilleria Nixtamal

    Yesterday I made a journey I’d been putting off for a while. Actually, it wasn’t even a journey I knew I could make. See, for my cookbook, I needed to track down fresh corn masa. I wasn’t sure where in New York I could get that until I read this excellent post on the Cooking…

  • Let’s Talk About Lettuce

    Let’s Talk About Lettuce

    I started cooking seven or eight years ago, maybe even a little further back, and it was around the time that people stopped buying whole heads of lettuce and started buying lettuce, pre-washed, in those little plastic tubs. The tubs, which are now omnipresent, have labels like “Spring Salad Mix” and “Herb Salad Mix” and…

  • Kings of Pastry

    Kings of Pastry

    My hands flew to my face several times last night. It was 1:30 AM and I’d made a mistake. At midnight, exhausted after testing four recipes, I loaded up “Kings of Pastry” on AppleTV just to see if it was something I wanted to watch. To say that I was immediately hooked would be a…

  • Pickle Juice & Chili Salt in Your Beer

    Pickle Juice & Chili Salt in Your Beer

    Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone! As a Jew, I’m not quite sure who St. Patrick is or why he has a day; I’m more familiar with St. Schlomo and his afternoon where you eat chopped liver and call your grandmother, but that’s neither here nor there. What is here and there is that some of…

  • The Hot Dog at Katz’s Deli

    The Hot Dog at Katz’s Deli

    There was a time in my life when I couldn’t conceive of going to Katz’s Deli and not ordering the pastrami. That would be like going to France and eating pizza; or going to the world’s best sushi restaurant and asking them to cook your fish. Go to Katz’s and not order pastrami? You’ve got…

  • Purple Peruvian Potato Hash

    Purple Peruvian Potato Hash

    A good argument to be made about the farmer’s market is: if you really believe in it, and go there to support farmers and local, sustainable agriculture, you should patronize it all year, including those rough months of winter. That is a good argument but, unfortunately, a rather impractical one. I mean when it’s bitter…

  • A Proper Tea

    A Proper Tea

    On this blog, only one hot, caffeinated beverage gets the love (see: coffee), but what about the other hot, caffeinated beverage? No, not boiled Coke, I’m talking about tea. Funny story: the other day I Tweeted, “I think I’m ready to own a teapot.”

  • Pour-Over Coffee

    Pour-Over Coffee

    Food journalists notice food trends—“this is the year of the nutmeg martini!” “oatmeal’s out, grits are back in”–and I’m not a food journalist, so I feel like I get a free pass on that front. I just cook, blog and eat (not always in that order) and go about my merry way. But last year,…

  • Fusilli with Tomatoes, Bacon & Blue Cheese

    Fusilli with Tomatoes, Bacon & Blue Cheese

    There it was, in the pan, ready to eat. A big panful of fusilli, coated in a sauce I’d improvised with bacon, red chile flakes, tomato paste and a can of tomatoes. I’d let the sauce cook down until it was nice and thick and then boiled the fusilli until just al dente, lifting it…

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