Plums are not my favorite fruit. Even the best ones, eaten out of hand, don’t do much for me; to my taste, the skin is sour and the flesh insipid. However – as I learned years ago from a recipe for plum sorbet – a little home processing brings about a marvelous change. There is…
Quick and Easy Refrigerator Pickles
After much dawdling trying to find the original, I have finally purchased a new power cord for my old digital camera. Though it’s ten years old and has fewer megapixels, this chunky old Sony has a beautiful Carl Zeiss lens and a lot more manual control than my newer, more portable Casio Exilim. I was…
Grilled Romaine Cobb Salad
I’ve been trying to recall where I first ate grilled romaine. I remember the salad itself, and my surprise and delight at the preparation. It was a Caesar salad, bright with lemon and smoky from the grill, a little shriveled and blackened on the ends. I think it was at the brilliant – and sadly…
Quick Eats: Melon and Feta Salad
Apparently it’s not so uncommon nowadays, but I first heard of melon and feta together in Nigella Lawson’s book Forever Summer – recently re-released as Nigella Fresh. (A hardback copy of the original Forever Summer is listed on Amazon.com for the unlikely price of $7,607.21.) Nigella’s version is much more complex than mine – and,…
Eating ABQ: Banh Mi Coda
The pork meatball banh mi at Banh Mi Coda Welcome to a new obsession: banh mi. These delicious sandwiches – a sort of Vietnamese sub – may seem an unlikely Asian food, depending as they do on fresh baguettes. They make sense, though, when you realize that Vietnam was influenced by France since the 17th…
Chipotle Chicken Salad Tacos
I’ve been saving this recipe for you. It’s an old favorite that I’d forgotten about and hadn’t made it in a few years. Back in March, though, I found myself with a small head of Napa cabbage and half a rotisserie chicken, and my memory was jogged. “Those chipotle chicken salad tacos were awesome,” I…
Warm Scallop, Sweet Corn, and Avocado Salad
Welcome to the dog days of summer. It is HOT outside, and not too pleasant in the house at midday either. You know, midday, say 2:00 to 5:00 or so, the hottest, stickiest part of the day – and the time when you have to start planning dinner. I dreamed up this recipe on one…
Eating ABQ: Van Rixel Bros. Gelato & Sorbet
Calling me a locavore would be like calling a meal vegetarian because there’s broccoli and a baked potato next to the steak. I love trying and collecting foodstuffs from all over the world – my pantry is crammed with Asian condiments and imported olive oils. But few things thrill me more than really good local…
Pennsylvania Dutch Baked Oatmeal
Yup, I’m back with another oatmeal recipe. I’m starting to wonder if I should change the name of this blog to “The Oatmeal Diaries.” But there are reasons, great reasons, for this obsession. Oats are convenient: They wait patiently in their cardboard tube (I buy them in bulk, but decant them into the familiar blue…
Roasted Asparagus
For years, I always cooked asparagus the same way – steamed in a covered saute pan with a little water. It is delicious that way, very simple and pure tasting. But then I tried roasting it, and I haven’t looked back. It’s utterly simple and frees up space on the stovetop (which is always at…