Wild Dandelion Turnovers

Guess what? It's a great time to pick dandelions. No, not to de-weed the lawn, like you were grudgingly made to as a kid to pitch in with household chores. To eat them! Because they're great right now. Wait for them to grow a few more weeks and they'll be more brittle and less palatable. And check out this comparison:

Freaky Week

Well, I’ve just completed a little experiment I’ve begun to call Opposite Week. Following a week’s worth of not eating out – the usual course – I threw myself into a strict diet of only restaurant-prepared foods for one week straight. It was fun, weird, nauseating and wonderful all at times. I tried to plan my days and nights eating more or less like an average working twenty-something, and not go out to nice restaurants all the time. I did, however, end up making a few dinner arrangements, and some of my friends seemed to get quite a kick out of seeing me sit down in a restaurant, order something, and staring as I took a bite. Some of these meals were great, some were so-so, and some reminded me of why I began my little boycott in the first place (i.e. a particularly poor Chinese take-out lunch; all manner of Midtown lunches).

4 Things Everyone Can Learn from a little Pig Butchering

Okay, so maybe that's a pretty big pig. Last week, I shared with you four lessons I learned in the geeky, futuristic world of high-tech food science. Perhaps I should have preceded it with this post, on a much more primitive practice: butchering. Still, it requires no less skill, experience and serious passion to hack up a hog than it does to turn sauces into silly string. I'm grateful to have learned these lessons at a sold-out pig butchering class at the Brooklyn Kitchen, under the expert guidance of Tom Mylan.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough-Topped Cupcakes

Warning: This product contains raw egg. It has, however, been tested in the Brooklyn kitchen of Not Eating Out in New York, and ingested at a gathering of cupcake enthusiasts in Manhattan, held by the blog Cupcakes Take the Cake. It was deemed delicious by all, and no subsequent injuries were suffered that I am aware of.

4 Things Everyone Can Learn from a little Food Science

Isn't that term just scary? Doesn't it make all you wholesome, organic, farm-to-table types just squirm? Indeed, "food science" used to be a derogatory way of describing the process by which overly processed foods are hatched in labs. Michael Pollan may have made a mockery of the industrial food industry's overuse of it in The Omnivore's Dilemma, but like it or not, molecular gastronomy is everywhere right now. After being embraced by chefs like Wylie Dufresne, among many others, these studies have even trickled down to curious home cooks. One good example, and good way to roll up one's sleeves in the craft, are the workshops led by the husband-and-wife written website Ideas in Food.

Fresh Watermelon Pie

It's really the last week of summer. The skies are really becoming darker sooner, and that chill breeze in the evening is really happening. But on the flipside, and in celebration of late-summer local fruits, this watermelon pie is also real. I didn't think it would make it past the dream stage for a while.

Roasted Eggplant BLT with Roasted Red Pepper Mayo

To repeat a joke my brother once made when I was in the same situation, I've got a lot of thyme on my hands. Fresh thyme. Which means it's going bad soon. It took a while for me to place why I'd gotten the large stash of spindles tucked away in my crisper drawer (oh right, those squash-stuffed Jamaican-style patties) today. I've got a lot of the dried kind, too. If only time were as plentiful as my thyme, then I'd have all the time in the world to make as many thymely recipes as possible.

Peach Watermelon Sangria Sorbet

Some people like to do a lot of canning, jamming and pickling this time of year, to preserve summer's harvest of ripe fruits and vegetables. Others simply chop them up and throw them in the freezer. In something of a cross between jamming and throwing in the freezer, I decided to take up the age-old tradition of boozy sorbet-making.

Vegetarian Jamaican Patties

Happy Labor Day. In my neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, this holiday doesn't just signal the end of half-day Fridays and seersucker; it ushers in the beginning of the new season with a two-mile long parade of elaborate floats, costumes and music, a street-wide carnival, and several performances at the Brooklyn Museum, all in celebration of West Indian American pride. And all along the way, lots and lots of authentic West Indian food.