I’ve been feeling ambitious in the kitchen lately. Well, not today. But I was last week. So when I made some pate (I’ll post about that later), I decided to try making some homemade crackers to go with it. I looked up several recipes, decided on a strategy, and headed into the kitchen. Ambition only…
The Essence of Summer: Steamed Corn Custard
Driving home the other day I saw a lovely sight: a dusty red truck parked in an empty lot next to a gas station. The truck was swathed with a yellow cloth banner reading “Fresh Moriarty Sweet Corn.” I missed the turn for the lot, and confess that I made some rather foolish driving maneuvers…
Sour Cherries in Caramel Sauce
Yes. This is as delicious as it sounds. It came about simply enough: I got a sack of precious, rare sour cherries from the CSA. I wanted to use them in something simple but glorious, something that would show off their brilliance and not cover it up. Something, since it was midsummer hot, that did…
Linguine with Eggplant Parmesan Sauce
For the food-obsessed, this is one of the most exciting times of year. After winter whittled our produce options down to hairy carrots, pale cabbages, and shriveled garlic, spring teased us with promise — but mostly provided an exhaustingly constant supply of greens and the here-and-gone quicksilver magic of fresh berries. But now we’re at…
Any-Berry Summer Pudding
Once in a while, you find you have too much of a good thing. That happened to me a couple weeks ago, with berries. The CSA gave me beautiful strawberries, Sunflower Market had blackberries and raspberries on sale and blueberries REALLY on sale, and my favorite purveyor of unusual items at the Growers’ Market was selling black…
Spiced Plum Jam
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,…
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…