Bademiya’s Justly Famous Chicken
Anyone who cooks maintains a mental recipe box. Organization methods vary, but it’s safe to say everyone’s box shares the following categories: -will cook this someday -delicious but too expensive/work intensive to prepare on a regular basis -holiday set pieces that cannot be changed -Wednesday night specials: dull but easily…
The Wacky Cake: Not My Grandmother’s Bundt
Bill LeBlond, editorial director of Chronicle Books, once told a crowd at a cookbook proposal seminar that if he had to read one more book proposal from people who learned about cooking at their grandmothers’ knee, he would throw up. Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food I spent a lot…
(Fake) Thai Drunken Noodles
Why Fake Thai Drunken Noodles? Well, I’ve never been to Thailand. (And how I long to go.) And it must be sadly admitted that, much as I passionately love Asian food, I am a Eastern European Jew, through and through. (In the past two weeks, we’ve had some rain…which led…
Miniature Chocolate Cakes
Years ago, while writing an article on holiday cookies, I consulted The Martha Stewart Living Christmas Cookbook. Stewart assume a readership whose kitchens are stocked like a Sur Le Table outlet: cake pans in every possible size and shape, pizza stones, candy thermometers, pastry bags, sugar combs, a willing staff ready to…
Dungeness Crab
Forbidden fish and seafood include… all shellfish and crustacea.. The Askenazim have been much stricter in their practice of kashrut, whereas the Sephardim, even when deeply religious, are known to have been more tolerant and easygoing. Claudia Roden, The Book Of Jewish Food Lobsters are essentially big fucking bugs; they’re…
White Chocolate Raspberry Truffles
After years of loathing white chocolate, I realized the trouble lay not with the ingredient itself, but with the disconnect between expectation and reality. Once I stopped expected white chocolate to taste like the stuff that with geographical pedigrees and percentage points, I stopped loathing it. A parable for hard-won…
Beef stir-fry with leafy greens and rice sticks
Beef stir-fry with leafy greens and rice sticks began as “Beef Slivers With Water Bamboo” from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. Korean rice sticks, called tteokbokki are stubby, chewy, and completely addictive. I keep mine in the freezer, where they tend to crack. This has no impact on their better qualities. I used…
Candied Citrus Peel
Some people excel at marketing themselves. They read self-help manuals filled with buzzwords; they engage in tactical online behaviors; they practice affirmations before mirrors. Me, I’m terrible at all that. This is a long-winded way of saying I keep forgetting to tell you my photography is now available at Shutterstock.com. You…
Mandarin Beef Stir Fry
So, hi. It’s a new year. The holidays are behind us. However you spent the past week, we can all heave a sigh of relief: the fuss is over until next December. You’re wondering about the stir-fry. Even as we vaccuum up those pesky Evergreen needles, here I am, fussing…
Chocolate Gingerbread
This being the holiday season, my non-Jewish spouse asked if I might bake him some Christmas cookies. Jews don’t inherit boxes of Christmassy cookie cutters from elderly relatives. This meant I had to shop for some. (The cutters, not the elderly relatives.) My tribe, we’re good at shopping. In short…
