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“Write what scares you.” That’s the kind of directive you’ll get in college creative writing classes, interactive online workshops and, believe it or not, grad school. You’ll get it from the old pros and you’ll get it from frustrated young upstarts: “write what scares you.” David Lindsay Abaire is a prolific playwright with many hilarious…

Remember that broccoli post I posted a few months ago? The Best Broccoli of Your Life? It kind of took the world–or, rather, the web–by storm. To prove it, do a Google search for “best broccoli recipe” and marvel at the #1 result. If Google says it’s the best broccoli recipe, then it has to…

What’s worse than traveling during the holidays? The answer: traveling from one snow storm to ANOTHER snow storm during the holidays. That’s what I attempted to do yesterday in what may have been the worst travel day of my life (though I’m sure you’ve experienced worse.) Let’s not talk about the 12 hours on the…

A journey of a thousand miles may begin with one step, but a recipe of several steps begins with precisely 2,408 miles. Specifically: the distance from New York to Seattle. It was on the plane from New York to Seattle that I read last month’s Bon Appetit magazine which featured our friend Molly Orangette’s recipe…

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Newspaper recipes don’t excite me. With their perfect margins, their definitive type, their antiseptic language, I very rarely open the Wednesday Food Section of The New York Times, read a recipe, and run home to make it. Perhaps it’s a function of old media vs. new media, in that the old media feels creaky and…

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Going through old pictures, just now, I found the picture you see above and smacked my lips at the memory: “Hey!” my brain sang out. “That’s that delicious butternut squash and chickpea salad with tahini you made from Orangette’s website.” According to the picture, I made this on December 19th. So please follow this link…

If Molly Orangette invites you over for New Year’s dinner, you don’t say no. You say “yes” as fast as you can and hope she doesn’t change her mind. I had to explain this to Craig who wanted to go but had “plans” with “friends” he’s known “forever” and he “promised” them he’d spend “New…

Yee-haw: that’s me, Molly and Kristin (Craig’s sister) on horseback at the top of Tiger Mountain. We went horseback riding yesterday (both Molly and Kristin have experience with horses; I don’t–which made trotting very painful) and it’s the best $60 I’ve spent in a long time. I’m heading back to New York tomorrow so until…