Farmers’ Market Hash

Sometimes I just want to retreat to a vegetable paradise. Where I can, you know, peel potatoes in a grass skirt and roll around in fields of cornsilk to the tunes of Cat Stevens. I get this feeling especially after visiting a midsummer farmers' market, soaking in the blissful variety and radiance of all the produce. It's not so much a sensation of hunger that I get as it is of admiration and awe, similar to visiting a museum. That Mother Nature, I say to myself, has truly has outdone herself with this exquisitely striped squash. Those heirloom tomatoes doubtless fall into the school of the grotesque-beautiful. Those peaches are a sign of the artist's age of maturity, a return to simplicity in form with a focus on texture.

Rebirthing Brillat-Savarin

What a week it's been. Working and barely playing when it's nice out for me always adds up to a slow way to count the weekdays. But luckily, a blissful way to end it came in the form of the second Foodie Book Club meeting at The Brooklyn Kitchen, where we tried to speak intelligently about Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's bible of epicurean philosophy, The Physiology of Taste, as translated and annotated by America's pioneering gastronome, M.F.K. Fisher. (It is a work that, aside from all else, couldn't be more pertinent to the young food blogger.) Thankfully, our session wasn't quite as taxing as it might sound, and was complimented with likewise simple recreations of some of the foods that he spoke so fondly of.

Smoky Ancho Chicken & Spinach Chilaquiles

Three words: Smoked Monterey Jack. A creamy composite of dove-complexioned tenderness on the inside, roughed up to a bronze smokehouse char on the outside. Not as piquant as smoked cheddar, or slightly spongy like smoked Gouda. It's more like a mouthful of pure, cool summer barbecue breeze, the kind that wafts into your window from the neighbors' yard and tantalizes you like crazy because you're not invited.

Enjoyably Easy Spinach Salad with Artichoke Hearts and Walnuts

Last week I reached for a jar on the back of the refrigerator door, knocked over the marinated artichoke hearts -- the cap must have been lazily placed on top rather than screwed on -- and spilled artichoke juice all over three shelves and the floor of the fridge. It didn't smell half bad. Tonight, I intentionally did much the same to this simple spinach salad -- that is, didn't bother whisking up any dressing. Nada. It wasn't half bad, either.

Here’s Lookin’ at You Cook: Jenni Ferrari-Adler

Hey there, lonely cooks: It's our time to shine. Today, Riverhead releases the anthology, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone, edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler. Judging from its impressive collection of witty, confessional and highly entertaining stories, the kitchen may just be today's literary equivalent of what the bedroom was in the 1970's.

Plum & Radicchio Panzanella with Honey Mustard Dressing

There is always a good way to use up leftover bread in Tuscany and that, of course, I applaud. Or should I say aspire to. I toast to that good food conscience. Whatever. The point is: panzanella. It sounds like the sweet baby girl name that you would never choose for fear she would take it as permission to wear skin-tight tube skirts and ride on the backs of motorcycles with guys named Marco whenever she'd tell you she was going to the market and only call you by your first name. And you'd be like, great... eh, but what can you do? Panzanella can only be Panzanella.

A Bloody Good Brooklyn Summer

Two summers ago it was a bar on Columbia St., at the "edge of Cobble Hill," called the B61 that I went to every spare happy hour I had and ordered a tall pint glass of bartender Jamie's magnificent Bloody Marys. Two parts homemade Bloody Mary mix heavy on the horseradish, one part vodka, a splash of Guinness straight from the tap, spice seasoning on the rim of the glass, cracked black pepper at the bottom, three olives speared with a toothpick, a lemon, a lime, and a stalk of celery. It was a meal made in hell. Or Brooklyn. (And one that still doesn't count as eating out.)

Swordfish Steak, Couscous Salad & Lemony Pesto Fresh Peas

Beware, I'm about to make an indie rock reference (or is it too oldschool to be indie?): Anyone remember the song, "Swordfish" by the Dead Milkmen? Its lyrics essentially consist of the chorus, "I believe in swordfish/He believes in swordfish," and it tells you nothing of swordfish except for the fact that everyone believes in something, and he believes in swordfish. Understandably so, as it would now seem.

Tricolor Potato Salad

My Grandma Erway, may her soul rest in peace, wasn't someone I thought I'd ever be taking cooking cues from. In her golden years, she often remarked on never enjoying the pesky task of cooking, and was relieved to let others take the wheel on occasions like Thanksgiving. She introduced me to Newberg, and badly. I didn't know if Newberg existed outside of her kitchen for many confused years, having only encountered it as chunks of artificially colored fishcake drowned in some pinkish, floury-tasting mayonnaise on white bread. She dressed fruit with heaps of sugar and served it on corn flakes with heaps of sugar. Fresh strawberries needed to be dipped in a bowl of sugar before they could touch her tongue. Her sweetened hot "black" tea was so lost in milky oblivion that it could put a virile youth to sleep in minutes. But there were instances of her overly dressed style of food preparation that were more than acceptable, and one shining example is her classic potato salad. Nearly half of it was hard-boiled eggs. The other half a mixture of French's mustard and mayonnaise. Oh, and a few peeled and boiled potatoes. The result was a uniform daisy yellow sludge with a blush of paprika on just its surface. Deviled potatoes, you might call them. This was actually a good thing.

White Bean Confetti Dip

Who says the Fourth of July can't be red, white, green, yellow, orange, purple and blue? This quick chip and dip snack is an easy fix for barbecue-bringing, and it can be improvised with almost any veggies you might have on hand. Sure, it might not look as bright and pretty in that abstract expressionist painting way as a strictly veggies-only salsa, but white beans go a long way and sure do make one smooth, almost creamy base.