Mediterranean Food

Warm Farro Salad

October 12, 2023

Today’s post, as the world burns, is about warm farro salad. Farro, otherwise known as emmer wheat, has yet to experience the ruinous fame that has struck tahini, quinoa, and miso. Instead of picturing ruinous fame, I give you this funnel on my kitchen windowsill. By “ruinous fame,” think foodie…

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Long-Cooked Broccoli

October 25, 2022

Long-cooked broccoli comes to us from Paul Bertolli’s Chez Panisse Cooking. I cooked it for years, forgot about it, then recalled it when I began making Paula Wolfert’s green beans with tomato, another recipe calling for long cooking. “Long-cooked” isn’t a euphemism for pap. Prepared with attention and care, long-cooked…

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Braised Artichokes

September 29, 2022

In this Julia Child recipe, braised artichokes are slowly cooked in chicken broth seasoned with white wine and butter. Child uses a classic mirepoix of diced carrot, onion, and celery. I had no celery and am married to an onion hater. I therefore used carrot, leek, and a little garlic….

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Spicy Oven Roasted Fries began as Batata Harra, a recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty More. I’ve prepared Batata Harra a few times, and it is delicious. I strayed from the original for reasons both personal and environmental. Springtime in a world gone mad. Ottolenghi and Company live and cook in…

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Hi. Your hostess returns. On December 16th I got my third Covid booster. The first two were Pfizer, and no big deal. The third was Moderna, and made me so sick John considered calling an ambulance. (Despite the above, I still think everyone should get vaccinated and boosted. A few…

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Green beans with Tomato Sauce

September 25, 2021

At first glance, green beans with tomato sauce doesn’t sound especially appetizing. And after two hours in the oven, it doesn’t look all that appetizing, either. Never mind: I nearly ate the entire batch myself, straight from the pan. The recipe comes from Paula Wolfert’s The Cooking of the Eastern…

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Note: Four years later: I realized the original post had an error concerning the tomatoes. I changed the recipe. It now calls for halved cherry tomatoes. The photographs do not reflect this. The recipe does, and while the earlier recipe worked, the updated one is an improvement. This is a…

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Pickled Onions

July 14, 2021

Once again your hostess would like to apologize for being such a laggardly poster. It’s not lack of interest in the blog, or in you, my readers. The truth is the same dull reason it’s always been: my health. More precisely, my back. Last week I had yet another cortisone…

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Lamb with Spring Vegetables might more aptly be titled: how to save dinner when you buy the wrong ingredients. Which is what yours truly did. Not the original ingredients. I stared at the recipe I’d meant to cook for a while, then at what I actually bought. Dinner needed cooking….

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Summer Vegetable Saute

August 4, 2020

So far as I can tell, people are responding to the pandemic in two ways. The first group Marie Kondos everything in sight, moves on to reading all of Tolstoy and/or Proust, then tackles that novel they’ve always meant to write. All of these accomplishments are shared on social media,…

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