All I want is a yurt somewhere. Perched up high in the cold night air. With one enormous chair, oh! Wouldn’t it be loverly?
All I want is a yurt somewhere. Perched up high in the cold night air. With one enormous chair, oh! Wouldn’t it be loverly?
As we ease into fall, the nights are cooler, yet the days are sunny enough to keep a dewey shimmer on the skin. The cooking in my kitchen is reflective of what is available with the seasons. I can’t get enough of the fantastic offerings from our farmer’s markets as my burgeoning refrigerator can attest. Although figs are not a local crop, they are cropping up by the boxful in grocery stores, full and sweet and priced well. Read More…
The August vegetable explosion is on! Tomatoes are ripe and richly flavored, squash is thin-skinned and tender. All are available in peak abundance at local farmer’s markets. This “soup” of vegetables simply stewed in their own juices cooks, as if by magic, with a simple layering of the ingredients in a pot. I culled this one from my mom’s recipe box – one I remember thinking was completely crazy – cooking lettuce – that’s salad! A crunchy head of Romaine is a key component as ninety five percent of the lettuce’s own bulk weight is water which supplements much of the broth. A dish that won’t whack you over the head with aggressive flavors, but will enchant you spoonful by spoonful with a colorful tangle of vegetables and a co-mingling of naturally sweet juices enhanced by a grace of salt. Read More…
Summer is fleeting and peaches are ripe for the picking and eating. Out of hand, over the sink with sweet juices running down my chin and arm, sliced and steeped in a quenching peachy lemonade, or pureed and churned into cold ice cream. These are a few of the ways I’ve been indulging in the peaches I purchase at the farmer’s market from Woolf Farms. Last Sunday I was lucky to wrestle politely grab the last order of rosy Red Havens. Sweet, but not cloying with a welcome acid balance – perfect for roasting as to coax out the stone fruit’s natural sugars. Read More…
A honeybee sting nearly killed me when I was eight. It happened as I was running barefoot across a clover-scattered lawn to a neighbor’s house for a swim. I don’t recall much else – apparently I soon went into anaphylactic shock, passed out in the pool and woke up the next day at the same hospital where my dad worked as a surgeon. I had been drifting in and out of consciousness for over twenty four hours and my body was a mass of hives. I was exquisitely lucky to be alive. Read More…
At least that’s how it works in my house. It’s indulgent and special, a delectable treat. So give it your all, make it celebratory, in fact. Which means… Read More…
If I were permitted only one word to describe Washington Post Food Editor Joe Yonan’s first book, Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One, what instantly comes to mind is “juicy”. Juicy, as a book which is chock aburst with vivid mouthwatering explosions of freshness and crunch. Juicy, as a book filled with vibrant recipes that are creative and intelligent, with consideration given to both the flavor and textures captured within every mouthful. Juicy, as I need a drool bib tied in place as I flip through the contents of recipes, soak in the words of Joe’s fine and friendly prose, and gaze upon the beckoning food photography. Read More…
My last media project was a monumental two month-long recipe test/development for TLC’s Kitchen Boss series. What exactly did that mean? It meant that on extremely short notice, I said yes to a new and wonderful gig, packed up my belongings in New York and scurried back to Cleveland. It also meant taking a little sip from the crazy cup. Read More…
With my toes glazed fittingly in OPI’s “My Chihuahua Bites” and ace-traveling companion, Karen, in tow, I flew off to the western coast of Mexico to escape the winter Siberia of Cleveland. Disloyalty, shmoyalty. Our unrelenting bitter, gray sludge of winter could smack the smile right off the perkiest pom pom princess, and any opportunity for me to leave that kind of soul-suck is a good one for all humankind. Read More…