Category

cheese

  • A French Feast for Craig’s Birthday (And The Best Soup I’ve Ever Made)

    A French Feast for Craig’s Birthday (And The Best Soup I’ve Ever Made)

    This year, on Craig’s birthday, I had a revelation. My usual instinct to take him out to a fancy dinner on the big day (a tradition that began with an epic meal at Per Se back in 2008) really has nothing to do with Craig’s interests or wants and everything to do with my own.…

  • Shopping is Cooking

    Shopping is Cooking

    When you’re having friends over for dinner at 7:30, and it’s getting on in the day, time grows precious and you have to prioritize. Do you spend it shopping or do you spend it cooking? More often than not, I spend it cooking. My usual cooking routine goes: rush to Gelson’s, gather up overpriced ingredients,…

  • Cheese Enchiladas with Chile Con Carne

    Cheese Enchiladas with Chile Con Carne

    Enchiladas have come into my life in a big way. It started when Craig talked about his mom’s enchiladas in the first episode of The Clean Plate Club. That inspired his mom, a week later, to make her famous enchiladas for dinner when we were all up in Bellingham. Her recipe is hand-written on an…

  • The Art of the Cheese Plate

    The Art of the Cheese Plate

    Bar Covell is one of L.A.’s (and the country’s) most celebrated wine bars and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite places to go in the early evening to meet a friend before grabbing dinner. The wine is always interesting and carefully selected and, if you’re hungry, they make a cheese plate that pretty much…

  • Mac with Cheddar, Gruyere & Blue Cheese

    Mac with Cheddar, Gruyere & Blue Cheese

    Funny, I was running on a treadmill when this wonderful gut-bomb of a recipe came into my life. Naturally, I was watching The Barefoot Contessa and she was planning a romantic weekend with Jeffrey, prepping the meal ahead so they could spend the day at Sag Harbor and have a montage of Ina laughing (what…

  • Cheese from Georgia

    Cheese from Georgia

    When I was in Birmingham for Food Blog South, I met a nice guy named Mat Willey who works for a company called Sweet Grass Dairy. “We make cheese,” he explained, “in Georgia.” Cheese from Georgia? Even though I lived in Georgia for 7 years (Atlanta, to be exact), I wasn’t particularly excited about eating…

  • My Best Grilled Cheese

    My Best Grilled Cheese

    This post is sponsored by Wisconsin Cheese which is hosting The 2013 Grilled Cheese Academy Recipe Showdown where you can win a $4,000 Gourmet Kitchenware Package. What really got me excited to participate was the opportunity for me to come up with the best grilled cheese I know how to make. And while I’ve made…

  • Cauliflower Gratin with Gruyère and Goat Cheese

    Cauliflower Gratin with Gruyère and Goat Cheese

    Call me a freak, but I get excited about cauliflower. It’s got great texture and, when cooked properly, can yield lots of big flavor. Most often I roast it in the oven or I caramelize it in a pan; not very often do I boil it, but even boiled cauliflower can hold its own. On…

  • Casellula, Maison Kayser & Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria

    Casellula, Maison Kayser & Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria

    You may not be surprised to learn that when it comes to what I eat, at any given moment, I can be a bit of a control freak. In fact I have a theory that most food people are control freaks: what better way to control what goes into your body than to become an…

  • Last Minute Gougères

    Last Minute Gougères

    On Saturday night, with 45 minutes left to go before our friend Dara was due to drop by for drinks, I made a drastic decision. I decided to make gougères. This seemed like a drastic decision because: (a) I didn’t have the right cheese in my refrigerator and (b) I’d have to dirty the kitchen…