Macaroni and Cheese–or Macaroni Cheese, if you’re a Brit–is a dish of infinite variety. A popular local restaurant menu offers Macaroni and Cheese with Enchilada Sauce, Mac n’Cheese “pizza style,” and, in perhaps the ultimate fusion dish, mac n’ cheese with Korean Short Ribs. Then there’s Nigella’s rightfully famed Mac…

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Blood Orange Ice Cream

January 21, 2024

Americans of a certain age might recall 1970’s Samsonsite luggage commercials. These advertisements featured a gorilla in an otherwise empty airport, trying and failing to destroy a Samsonite suitcase. This ad came to mind Monday, when my husband returned after a brief trip. He’d flown on the “good” airline, the…

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Tomato Soup

January 3, 2024

Of all the recipes a well-intentioned person can offer, soup is perhaps the most difficult to quantify. Laurie Colwin famously wrote about this in the essay “Soup,” found in Home Cooking. For the three people left on the planet who haven’t read Colwin, in brief, she describes soup as naturally…

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Winter Pate

December 20, 2023

You’ve made meat loaf, right? You’ve eaten cold meat loaf, yes? Then you’re halfway to being a an ass-kicking, name-taking charcutier. “Ooooh…pate, I don’t know.” Please. Campagne means “country” in French–which means even your country-ass can make it. Anthony Bourdain (who else?) Les Halles Cookbook Today’s recipe came about after…

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Chard bundles with chicken and pomegranate molasses hereby join the enormous culinary family known as stuffed vegetables. Anyone inclined to create a family tree of stuffed veg would be well advised to park chard bundles on the cabbage side, near the second cousins. You think I sound nuts? Have you…

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A Picture Post

November 20, 2023

A picture post, because I won’t have time for a recipe before Thanksgiving. Apples. Lemongrass. Helen Goh’s Take Home Chocolate Cake, from Sweet. Sunrise, as seen out the study window. Frozen bacon. Borlotti Beans.   Have a safe and happy holiday.    

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Nantucket Cranberry Pie

November 12, 2023

Nantucket Cranberry Pie is not a pie. It is a cake. How it came to be called Nantucket Cranberry Pie is something of a mystery: the recipe comes from Laurie Colwin’s More Home Cooking. There she describes the cake as coming from her friend Ann Gold, who inherited the recipe…

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Pickled Grapes

October 25, 2023

As the holidays ramp up, so does the production of foods falling under the capacious, vague, generally alarming category of edibles labeled “great with a cheese platter.” Let’s not even discuss those foods that are “terrific with charcuterie!” Coming soon to a holiday table near you. Even the most cheese-loving…

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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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No Churn Chocolate Ice Cream

September 22, 2023

For years I viewed no-churn ice creams as the poor relations of the frozen dessert world. My reasoning went like this: if I was going to eat ice cream, then I wanted to eat the real thing. By “the real thing,” think custard-based ice creams calling for six egg yolks…

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