This Christmas dinner, I was preparing a meal for nine people including myself. At least one of them was lactose-intolerant; at least one was kosher. And the main course for the evening was unquestionably rich — a prime rib of beef, to be exact. But I still wanted to make a soup that was heady and savory. The kind of soup that makes people want to finish a whole bowl of and call it a meal. I suppose I should … Read More
My favorite nut (besides, perhaps, my mother) is the buttery cashew. For a long time I thought there was no better way to enjoy them than alone, roasted, straight out of the can and without the pesky accompaniment of lesser nuts mixed in. A little coat of salt, maybe. But that was all. This may or may not still be the ultimate cashew experience, but recently I’ve discovered this nut to be a little more versatile to add.
Ding-aling… Ring-aling… it’s Christmastime in the city. And what do city girls do to get into the spirit? Well, if you’re like half of the informal poll I’ve taken of my favorite ladies, you actually go out and buy a medium to large-sized tree to drag back to your apartment. That’s right, a suburban family-oriented phenomenon no more. (Interestingly, most of these tree-buyers have roommates, while the others live alone or with a significant other. I guess it’s not much … Read More
I first made this meal a few weeks ago when I came home from running errands to a living room filled with three friends (including my boyfriend). I was starving. But I tried to play it cool, pouring myself a whiskey on ice like they were all drinking, and calmly bringing out a tray of toasted squash seeds to munch on — a side project from an earlier experiment I had been doing with a roasted spaghetti squash. Of course, … Read More
Submissions close for the first-ever Ugliest Gourmet blogging contest in about ten minutes, and I scramble to bring you this humble entry. I contemplated plenty of visually off-putting dishes in the past weeks, but in the end, this simple vegetable side seemed to be the most to-the-point: Butter, broccoli and Parmiggiano-Reggiano — what’s not to love? Oh yeah, that gross green muck that it turns out looking like.
Don’t be swayed by the length of this rather unwieldy-sounding recipe’s name; the latter two ingredients, candied orange peels and fresh mint, are almost inessential to the sparkling culinary gemstone that is roasted beets and fresh orange slices. “Wow” hardly nips at the issue I’m talking about here. Okay, so it’s only food — two foods to be precise. But sometimes, all’s it takes, as they say, is two to tango.
super squash-caramel sundae Not butter rum ice cream, not just butternut squash ice cream (although you can just omit the rum if you care for that), but buttery, yummy rum butternut squash ice cream. Say that five times fast. Now try it after some more of that rum.
I find it no coincidence that so many cultures like to tame eggplant by beating them to a pulp. My run-in with not-so-well-cooked eggplant earlier this summer has put me off the poisonous plants for a little while, but I’m not calling it quits just yet. Baba ghanoush, eggplant “caviar,” so to speak, has been enjoyed throughout Middle Eastern, North African and Eastern European cuisines for many centuries before peasant food became chic. They must know what they’re doing.
Vinda-who? Has it been this long since I’ve dined in an Indian restaurant? I suppose so. You see, I’ve been spoiled by always having plenty of Indian friends while growing up that the taste of authentic curry was never too hard to come by. Nowadays though, things have gotten a bit dicey. I’ve long forgotten what many of my favorite types of dishes were called, or what they consisted of. But perhaps the most tragic thing I managed to forget … Read More
Braciole, or roulade? Such different-sounding words for such similar spirals of meat and filling. The former, I’ve just learned, is merely an Italian American variety of the latter French creation. Because the ingredients I’ve chosen for this one’s filling are more typically Italian than French, though, I’ll go with naming it a braciole.