THEY COULDN’T LOOK MORE UNPREPOSSESING. AND THEY COULDN’T BE EASIER. AND THEY COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE MORE DELICIOUS, OR MORE PERFECT FOR THIS TIME OF YEAR. MEET MY MOTHER’S BAKED APPLES. (Option: Go straight to recipe, skipping story). First frost finally came this year, in late October, after a too-long, worrisomely-hot summer. We were ready. We’d dug up the elephant… Read More
IF YOU THINK YOU DON’T LIKE OKRA, JUST TRY THIS RECIPE. I do three vegetables in this way, with slight variations: summer squash, and green beans (my Greek-Style Green Beans were featured on The Splendid Table, and were one of the show’s three most popular recipes of that year). P.S. The reason they are Greek-style rather than Greek, is that… Read More
OKRA-HATERS! STOP MALIGNING A VEGETABLE YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND OR HAVEN’T HAD COOKED RIGHT! OKRA-LOVERS! LEARN A NEW WAY TO ADORE THOSE GREEN PODS! EITHER WAY, DO IT QUICKLY, RIGHT NOW, BEFORE SUMMER DEFINITIVELY ENDS. (PLUS, TWO DON’T-MISS BOOKS, AN EXAMPLE OF YANKEE WTF-NESS, RACISM IN THE KITCHEN, AND THE QUESTION OF SLIMINESS, DEALT WITH ONCE AND FOR ALL) People who… Read More
To dessert-lovers, a good cake has no down side. Unless, of course, it happens to be an upside-down cake. (Go directly to recipe here.) To those of us who love making dessert — who find baking from scratch as much or more fun than eating it — the upside-down cake is a high-scorer. If short on time needed for your… Read More
FEATHERBED EGGS, A SWOONINGLY DELISH, DO-AHEAD CASSEROLE — AN EGG MIXTURE IS POURED OVER CRUMBLED, SLIGHTLY STALE CORNBREAD, AND THE WHOLE SHEBANG IS BAKED TO A FARE-THEE-WELL — IS PROBABLY THE PERFECT MAIN DISH FOR AN EASTER BRUNCH WHERE YOU DON’T WANT TO SPEND THE WHOLE TIME FUTZING IN THE KITCHEN. IN HONOR OF THAT, THE RECIPE, WITH THIS STORY… Read More
IT’S ALMOST ST. PATRICK’S DAY, SO IT IS TIME FOR ME, AGAIN, TO OFFER YOU THIS GUINNESS STOUT CHOCOLATE LAYER CAKE THAT PULLS OUT ALL THE STOPS. IN CASE YOU CELEBRATE THIS HOLIDAY BY COOKING FOR OTHERS AND HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR AN IRISH-ISH DESSERT THAT IS A KNOCK-YOUR-SOCKS-OFF WOW, THIS MAY WELL BE IT. IT IS (SHE SAID MODESTLY)… Read More
WHO MAKES AND EATS A SOUP, THE SAME SOUP, DAILY, FOR LUNCH, HUNDREDS OF TIMES? REID BRANSON, OF SEATTLE, THAT’S WHO. The subject line: “Lentil soup.” The sender: Reid Branson. Someone unknown to me. The receipt of emails from unknown senders with such subject lines are not atypical for cookbook writers in the era of Googleability. When I see one,… Read More
The circle turns. The green world again goes gold, yellow, red. Instead of the zucchinis, the excess of which we may have complained about only six weeks ago, we now coo over adorable gourds and mini-squashes, admire big honkin’ pumpkins and sweet, bright creased or crook-necked winter squashes. So pleasing aesthetically, sculptural, decorative, signal of the season. And then! Beneath those… Read More
THE ONLY SUMMER SOUP RECIPE YOU WILL EVER NEED. SO SAVE YOUR GORGEOUS SUMMER-RIPE TOMATOES FOR SOMETHING ELSE. BECAUSE, FRANKLY, THIS LEAVES TRADITIONAL GAZPACHO IN THE SHADE. It got up to to 96 degrees yesterday. In Vermont! And it wasn’t even quite July yet! This struck me as cruel and unusual punishment, because part of the reason I adore Vermont… Read More
There’s no doubt of this: New Orleans is a city which knows its beans. So when Camellia Beans, a well-respected and well-loved brand of dry beans based in that municipality approached me about using some of the lima bean recipes from my book Bean by Bean, of course I gladly said yes. They have just put up the post featuring three… Read More
I’m in New York at the moment, with my boyfriend. I woke up early, suddenly and fully this morning, filled with reasonless happiness. He was asleep, warm beside me. I started thinking about what to make for breakfast. Out of nowhere, in that funny discursive way memory has, biscuits and gravy came to mind. THE SUN KITCHEN I used to… Read More
FOREWORD: I wrote recently here about traveling to the awards ceremony for the International Association of Culinary Professionals,\ with one of the first-time nominees. Our conversation made me recall a post I’d written immediately after I had won an award for one of my books, Passionate Vegetarian, back in 2003. It was a book which had also been nominated for and lost… Read More
