So Many Recipes, So Little Time
Julia Child’s The New Way to Cook was my very first cookbook. Ever. Almost thirty years ago, Tom got it to mark our move from Manhattan to New Jersey and the start of our new life. The book started my cooking craze. Until then, I didn’t really know how to boil eggs or peel potatoes….
When someone compliments my cooking, the family’s joint response is — Enjoy, she’ll never make it again. Can you blame me? So many recipes, so little time. However, there are exceptions. Here’s one. Since in 2003 I got Tom Valenti’s book of One Pot Meals, this lasagna has been on our table at least once…
Kimchi Fried Rice from Dinner in One by Melissa Clark — tasty, quick, easy, perfect for leftovers, excellent refrigerator cleanup. Love the ending of the recipe that suggests topping the rice with eggs, scallion greens, more kimchi, more sesame oil, more fish sauce, more soy sauce. More, more, more!.. That’s how I like it —…
Ever since my first days in the United States, I have not been comfortable with food packed in bags. Not that I did not like it — I actually loved it. But that food was intimidating — so new and different. When we were out for dinner to family or friends’ houses, I always admired…
Isn’t it obvious why Soviets were so after Fidel? It’s the sandwich, stupid! At Guantanamera, it was probably the best one I’ve ever had. First it was the bread. Fried to a perfect crisp, wafer thin, it was not just breaking at the bite but crackling of where the teeth touched. Then, there was pork…
Dan Dan Mian is one of our family favorites. We tried many versions of this simple Sichuan pork-and-noodles staple and never had a bad one. This version from the Milk Street Magazine is attractive with its super streamlined process — dinner comes together within minutes it takes to boil pasta and calls for the ingredients…
Another fantastic discovery in the city — Blue Willow, Hunan/Sichuan. Amazing food, dreamy sensuous Wong Kar-Waiesque ambiance, and extremely reasonable for midtown Manhattan prices. Just be sure to make a reservation, which with Resy is really stress-free. We debated between the ma la pot and farmhouse pork belly choosing the latter only because it…
Honestly, the picture of the reddish brown mass called carcamusa in Milk Street Magazine didn’t excite me. Besides, I am not even good at imagining flavors by reading the ingredients. It just happened that all the parts were on hand and we had to have something for dinner and tomorrow’s lunches. My excitement started building…
For almost thirty years, several times a week, I have been driving by this place on my way food shopping, to the bank, to the airport for pick ups and drop offs, giving tours to house guests, and for almost every other errand saying to myself each time: we have to try it. Tom literally…
We’re lucky to live in the area where many different cultures are within a close reach. Not only in Queens, Brooklyn, or the Bronx which are a bus and a subway ride away but also in Paterson, NJ that takes minutes by car. The prospect of shopping for clothes depresses and terrifies me. Shopping…