So Many Recipes, So Little Time
It finally dawned on me that this year November 1 falls on a Thursday which means Thanksgiving is as early as it can be. A person of lists and schedules, for a moment I panicked — it was already the second week of November. — What are you worried about? Just get a turkey and…
My usual assignment for a family Easter gathering is vegetables. There’s one dish I make every year — an element of comfort — and one new — a surprise. The idea for the traditional one comes from 2001 Food & Wine magazine. For a couple of years, I followed the recipe to a T, then,…
It was supposed to be a classic chicken soup — I am still nursing a cold. But recent frost that prompted a hasty garden clean up provided a good deal of tomatillos, a few poblanos and serranos. In the pantry, there were two cans of hominy from some previously failed project, pepitas, cilantro, and lime….
Cape Malay — savory, rich, and spicy curry from South Africa with rice, roti, and pickled tomato-onion relish. The list of ingredients is long but, an Ottolenghi-prepared mise-en-place-enthusiast, I breezed through it with pleasure. This is my favorite way to cook acquired years ago reading books by Fu Pei Mei, a distinguished Chinese culinary artist:…
Playing Sicily on a Jersey porch. I grew up on what is called eggplant caviar, a rare delicacy available to a lucky few only a couple of months in a year after a lengthy wait in a grocery store line and a laborious process. The value and significance of the said caviar — way above…
Although Fuchsia Dunlop called a hotpotization of Chinese cuisine a step down from the wok mastery, for gatherings at home, hot pot is a huge step up. Here are some of the advantages of hot pot meals:— no skill is required, just planning and chopping; — most of the meal can be prepared way in…
An absolute fish collar convert here. The amount of flesh in a collar is comparable to that of a filet but the texture of it is that of a cheek. Yes, there are bones to work around. Sometime ago, I read about Asian proclivity to and mastery with bones. A FaceTime chat with my daughter…
Of all the conch fritters — from Florida, to Bahamas, to Jamaica, and around Caribbean — Antiguan looked the most appealing with all the vegetables and herbs added to the mix. Not a complicated recipe, as long as there’s an H Mart nearby to deliver the conch meat and Scotch bonnets. For the dip, there…
Erik Kim’s Pepperoncini Tuna Salad from The New York Times has been on my list since forever. But when the craving hit, it didn’t feel like fiddling with a can opener and draining. Summer laziness takes unexpected forms. That day, a piece of salmon in place of canned tuna — 10 minutes at 425°F on…
Dog days of summer — last Monday was officially the hottest day on record on the planet. Summer is sliding off the top of my list. The one good thing about it is less traffic where we live — schools are closed, everyone is traveling elsewhere. I miss cold weather cooking — long slow simmering, oven,…