Green Salad with Baby Red Potatoes, Bacon, Shaved Smoked Cheddar, and Onion with Lemon Vinaigrette

  I suspect that the title is long enough for readers to come to their own conclusions about this recipe, but even so, I'm going to blab.  Chilled red potatoes are my new croutons.  They have this ever-so-subtly satisfying pop when your teeth break into their skins, and taste even more earthy and mildly creamy when cold.  Remember how much you liked the cold potato salad at all those barbecues in the summer that you filled yourself up with it before you got to try the burnt stuff on the grill?  That's how much you will love them in a green salad. 

Plain Old Fried Rice with Five-Spice Tofu

I almost winced when reading an "Asian" (fusion, I guess) recipe in a major glossy magazine that called for a Noah's Ark full of ingredients from all across the world. It was a pork recipe, and just the notion of using fish sauce and Chinese black bean sauce in combination was enough to make my stomach turn, let alone calling for more than three tablespoons of fish sauce period. But the fact that the recipe also included hoisin sauce, sesame oil, orange juice, ginger, lime juice, sugar, cilantro, Serrano chiles, and honey was laughable. And what happened to soy sauce, or even salt, the most basic marinade ingredients upon which to add one or two more ingredients for a sturdy, reliable flavor? Not on the index-sized list. Maybe I'm just being plebian about it. But it's funny, because with all the emphasis on simplicity in modern New American and European cuisines, it's incredible how much work everyone seems to think Asian food is. Plain old home-cooking, it seems, hasn't quite fazed the American public.

Hanger Steak with Portobellos

Cooking for one is something that I struggle with on a daily basis, and the impracticality of it is a major reason why single people around my age eat out all of the time. I'm not going to lie and say that it isn't a big load of work to make something elaborate for just one night, for one person, and then get creative with the leftovers and ingredients not used. Or the time-consuming aspect of it. Think of all those foods that you can only buy in family-sized packages, jars, bunches, and cans. After some experience, though, knowing how to cook small and shop wisely should come more easily. I pretty much live by the credo that what's perishable must be used, in some way, in your dinner that night.

Carrot Ginger Muffins

I'm in love with my jelly silicon muffin pan. Muffins pop out of them with barely a tap, and muffin varieties are a territory that seems endless in scope.

Desserts: The Disasters Part One

Desserts have never been my close kin in the kitchen. I don't think my mother ever prepared a dessert, and she also wasn't the kind to keep the freezer stocked with them unless it was summer, and my brother and I begged and squealed for popsicles. Then, we got this nifty popsicle mold that we poured 100% orange juice into and froze. Its handles even had this basin to catch the melting juice, with a straw attached to slurp it up. So it was more or less drinking Tropicana rather than having dessert, but these days I have to hand it to mom, whose cavity-less kids stood testament to her sugar-free principles.

NYC Pickle Day is Not Eating Out

On Sunday, the lampposts were decorated with green balloons along Orchard Street in the Lower East Side. Down a few narrow blocks to Guss' corner deli, a neighborhood landmark pickle maker, and the garlicky brines of some dozen pickle makers' tents filled the air of the dank, congested streets. It was a beautiful day in the city.

White Bean Zucchini Soup with White Cheddar Scallion Muffins

I really wasn’t sure what to do with all that cheddar I hoarded back from Tillamook. When the nice lady working at the factory’s store told me that the cheese was indeed transportable as long as it was unopened, I went apeshit and got a few blocks, forgetting that the only thing I really do with cheddar – and I only eat the sharpest of the sharp white – is slice it up and munch on it with wine, or make a decadent quiche. But, I do love that cheese. I have an immature taste when it comes to cheeses – back when most people were in their cheddar phase at oh, maybe five, I was tasting and spitting out Kraft American singles. So when the latest Food and Wine magazine published a recipe for White Cheddar and Scallion muffins, this had to be for me. Since I rarely bake, the first ingredient purchased was a muffin pan. I got a silly, rubbery silicon one in cobalt blue that looks like it should belong in PeeWee’s Playhouse rather than a kitchen. I’m not sure why manufacturers have to choose bright colors for an already preposterous-looking tool.

Eating Out in LA & Oregon

I didn't think it was going to be that difficult to travel without a laptop, and post blogs. But the west coast didn't prove to be as cyber-friendly as I had hoped. That, and I wasn't trying too hard because I was on vacation, and was very, very busy eating out. For the record, I didn't go out there to check out Kerry Simon's new LA restaurant or the Wolfgang Puck Express, but I went to LA to visit my grandfather, and to Oregon, for friends. In the end, such as my last meal at the airport between flights, I was reminded of how not fun it can be to rely on whatever food options are available at a certain area. But in between, several highlights are pictured in this belated photo essay below.