Category

almonds

  • Calabrian Walnut Cake

    Calabrian Walnut Cake

    As many of you know, I’m an almond cake guy. So much so, if were I given the opportunity to take three recipes into my next life, one of them would absolutely be the almond cake from Cooking for Mr. Latte. You’ll find it funny, then, that when I finally set out to make a…

  • Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad with Pears, Toasted Almonds, and Parmesan

    Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad with Pears, Toasted Almonds, and Parmesan

    There’s been some debate about whether or not you should serve salad at Thanksgiving. My stance? A traditional salad — with wan lettuce leaves from a bag, dried cranberries (the most clichéd Thanksgiving salad ingredient), and toasted pecans — is a pretty depressing thing to see on the table, TBH. But, as I get older,…

  • Pasta with Zucchini and Almonds

    Pasta with Zucchini and Almonds

    I’m not the world’s biggest zucchini fan. It’s fine: I like it in bread, I guess I like it in a salad. Maybe on a pizza? But there’s one recipe from my archives that really made zucchini come alive for me. That’s this side dish of Zucchini with Almonds from The Red Cat in New…

  • Franny’s Toasted Almond Gelato

    Franny’s Toasted Almond Gelato

    Somewhere along the way, I lost interest in making ice cream. I didn’t lose interest in ice cream, just making it. So if I were to have a dinner party, I might make brownies and hot fudge sauce for brownie sundaes (as I did for an upcoming episode of The Clean Plate Club), but I’d…

  • Almond Cake with Plums

    Almond Cake with Plums

    “Take a risk or play it safe?” That was the question I asked myself the day before Besha Rodell and Rachel Shukert came over for dinner last week. Rachel I wasn’t nervous about. Even though I’d never met her before, I knew we’d click because we’re both musical theater geeks. The food would be secondary.…

  • Lindsey Shere’s Legendary Almond Tart

    Lindsey Shere’s Legendary Almond Tart

    I suppose I must really like a challenge because, on the night that I made the bouillabaisse, I also attempted a famously difficult dessert: Lindsey Shere’s Almond Tart. Lindsey Shere, in case you don’t know, helped open Chez Panisse in 1971 and stayed there as pastry chef until 1998. I first heard about her famous…

  • Zucchini with Almonds

    Zucchini with Almonds

    What’s that expression about teachers learning from their students? Is there an expression like that? There really should be. You may recall that for my cookbook I have an intern named Tyla working with me. Tyla herself has a food blog called “Learning To Live Without A Microwave” and on her blog last week I…

  • Green Almonds

    Green Almonds

    On the cover of the Zuni Cafe Cookbook you will see three nectarines, several slices of prosciutto, and there, at 9 o’clock on the plate, a handful of green almonds, two of them split open, their kernels separated on to the black plate. This image, to me, has always evoked a precious, inaccessible other world–a…