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.
Hear me out: I acknowledge global warming. I am sitting in my apartment with two fans on glued to this chair and have ice cubes in my cheeks like a squirrel hoarding nuts. Did they say global humidifying is upon us as well, or is it just these couple of days we’re having in the hellishly hot tri-state area?
I’m taking Arthur’s advice this month and eating plenty of asparagus while they’re in season. In fact, I owe so much to the erudite and challenging wisdom he’s extended me that I had even considered blending this vegetable with strawberries (the other food he mentioned is best in June) in a salad, and took this idea for a good mental romp in the park, but ultimately, I chickened out on the big kid slide. For now.
There’s always those nights when I’m craving something that feels like it’s from a greasy take-out restaurant. My creations never, thankfully, end up quite as greasy, and I hope it stays that way. I’m not sure that I would even know how to make food as greasy as some restaurants do — is it not trimming globs of fat from meat? Cooking in copious amounts of oil oil slathering butter and mayonnaise from a greasy wand with reckless abandon, like … Read More
Moms love French food. Soufflés make her sparkle. Provençal sounds like a good name for a kid to her. Bistros are her preferred bar. The allure of this country’s culinary je ne sais quois can might coincide with a vast generation clued in to its mysteries and virtues by a tall, warbly-voiced, and ever so ladylike American named Julia Child. Then again, my dad knows much more about The Way to Cook than my own mom, who’s never dabbled in … Read More
No seasonal food taboos can get between me and my favorite Italian rice dish (are there any others?): risotto is delicious year-round. It simply absorbs the season into its gooey mass and holds it there snug like a mother kangaroo. Lemon? Sure. Crisp spring vegetables like sugar snap peas, juicy zucchini and fresh chopped scallions? Why not? Welcome to spring, risotto. You’re looking green and well today.
As I was celebrating the shameless drinking holiday oft misunderstood as Mexico’s Independence Day this weekend, I learned that a) Cinco de Mayo is not even terribly important in Mexico, and that b) it was mostly invented by American spring breakers crossing the border to get wasted, so says a friend who happens to be Mexican. So why is New York city, a far cry from Tijuana, also crazy for this holiday? Sure, there was a battle in Puebla, Mexico … Read More
Wild local fish like flounder, stripers and bluefish are in season — all good stuff, in my opinion, to steam whole, Chinese style. This weekend as I was gathering ingredients for a 6-person dinner party, I familiarized myself with another: the wild local porgy. A small fish by nature (not many grow over 6 lb, according to this fact sheet), its mild, sweet flavor lends itself well to a light preparation such as steaming. Once cooked, its flesh was moist … Read More
I’d like to think of this as less a recipe than an olfactory cooking cure. Somewhere along the ranks of boiling a slow-cooked pot of chicken soup — it’s those hours of comforting smells, I’m convinced, that ease the common cold long before its consumption. The savory, sweet and spicy smells emitting from my oven as I baked this helped lift me out of an early spring slump — and eating it didn’t hurt, either.
“Give a man a quiche and you satisfy his need for quiche for a day. Teach a man to make quiche, and you give him quiches for life.” –New Half-Chinese Proverb And teach him also that you don’t have to make it for breakfasts… No doubt quiche was given a bad rap in the eighties. I guess people still think of it as one of the more fussy, frilly and feminine of the brunch species; but what man, really, doesn’t … Read More