Chicken with Water Chestnuts
When I was a child, we had a neighbor who was into what was then called “gourmet cooking.” Said neighbor also subscribed to Gourmet Magazine, which he shared with our household. This was during the Gail Zweigenthal years. I admit to finding the magazine dull, but I was a child–under…
Little Lemon Cakes
Too many lemons is a first world problem, but there you are. We have a lemon tree in our yard, but so do lots of other Bay Area inhabitants. Free lemons aren’t always met with appreciation. Searching for a productive way to use up my lemon glut, I turned to…
Cabbage Soup
Pity the poor cabbage. It gets a bad rap. Too many people are scarred by bad cabbage experiences: boiled beyond recognition….or the cabbage soup diet. Lacking illustrative photos of overboiled cabbage or the soup diet, I give you San Francisco’s Union Square. More accurately, a street near Union Square. Handled…
Eating European Tomatoes with The Tomato Sisters
Disclaimer: I’ve recently partnered with The Greatest Tomatoes from Europe, working to publicize their canned tomato products. I am not being paid for my participation, aside from some wonderful canned tomato products from Europe–and some Italian pasta. Any views posted are strictly my own. It’s 8:41 am. I am…
Espresso Chocolate Truffles
Elizabeth David, writing her magisterially grumpy Elizabeth David’s Christmas, tackles edible gifting with her usual verve, writing: Those bottles of indeterminate sherry and port, Christmas puddings and tins of tea and fancy biscuits are survivals from the days when such things were distributed by Ladies Bountiful to old retainers, retired nannies…
Pork Chops with Italian Butter Beans
It’s October. The season of pumpkin spice is upon us. Everywhere you go, pumpkin spice: pies, cakes, cookies. Pumpkin spice candles, therapeutic oils, scented sprays. Okay, maybe not everywhere. My local office supply store has no pumpkin spice in sight. They’re closing October 18th to make way for a high-rise…
Bagels
[Editor’s note, 11/24/21: This post was written before Boichik Bagels came to town. It is now possible to procure a decent bagel in Northern California. Corned beef? Not so much. But we no longer need to make bagels at home.] I know what you’re thinking. Bagels? At home? What for?…
Cooking ahead
Last month, while waiting to get a corticosteroid shot in my spine, I went on a major cooking/baking/freezing jag, much of it between three and six am. Cooking was a way of maintaining some control, however tenuous. The recipes below offered succor both before the injection and afterward, when your…
Seafood Rillettes
Sometimes a recipe comes to you numerous times before you think to make it. Such was the case with seafood rillettes. As a nervous fish cook and somebody whose relationship to canned fish began and ended with tuna, seafood rillettes weren’t on my radar. Aiming for the casual indoor picnic…
Thai-Style Stuffed Cucumbers
Thai cookbooks abound in recipes for geng jeut mara yord sai, or pork-stuffed bitter melon soups. “Soups,” plural, as this recipe has countless variations. Some cooks stuff cucumber instead of bitter melon; others abandon the vegetable container in favor of squid. Yet another variation of geng jeut mara yord sai abandons…