Just a simple twist on an old favorite. I love how a snip of fresh herbs spruces up just about anything. Visually, a sprinkle for garnish adds professional panache, and hidden somewhere in the dish, lends a lurking note of freshness. That goes for desserts as well.
How many times have you heard it uttered by chefs, food experts and on cooking TV shows to salt the water in your pot of boiling pasta water so that it’s salty “like the sea”? That’s one edict that everyone seems to agree on. But I beg to differ, in some cases (more on that below). Therefore, when an editor from the New York Times‘ new Room for Debate blog contacted me and asked me if I had a food … Read More
Spring is officially here, and to celebrate the first day of nature’s annual renewal, I took a field trip out to a farm. Only I didn’t leave the city. At the end of the E and F subway lines and a quick hop eastward on a bus lies the Queens County Farm Museum, the oldest continually farmed tract of land in the city, and now the site of a renewed agricultural program that’s growing still. But unlike Stone Barns or … Read More
Thanks to fourteen chowders, it was warm and clammy in the back room of Jimmy’s No. 43 on Saturday. Fifteen, if you counted the pot of Manhattan-style chowder that the restaurant’s resident chefs cooked up as extra, which was still going strong by the end of the event and made a perfect straggler second-course. But the real battle was fought by the amateurs. This time, the cook-off community of NYC was drawn a wildcard dish du jour: chowder. And a … Read More
I subscribe to the theory of “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”; that is, cook your way through your problems. I’m faced with a terrible predicament at home: one of my best friends is moving away from our neighborhood halfway across the world, to Australia. I’ve known this for a few months, but it’s finally begun to sink in. So for her going-away party, I thought I’d try my hand at miniature-sized, vegetarian-friendly versions of the savory treat to … Read More
I do love a new cook-off! Tomorrow, a smattering of home chefs will be bringing their best to Jimmy’s No. 43 in celebration of local, sustainable and artisanal foods which New Amsterdam Market vigorously supports, and winter’s favorite soup: chowder. There may be few parameters on what makes a chowder just that, but no one can argue that the best chowders are usually chock full of chunks, every spoonful of the stuff a claustrophobic array of deliciousness. And that’s probably … Read More
Yesterday, I came across a scary article about a suspicious bill concerning food safety issues. “You May Be Arrested Soon For Growing A Tomato,” it warned, and spoke of the bill placing “wildly restrictive regulatory encumbrances on the average vegetable growing Joe-The-Plumber, small organic farmer, or anyone for that matter who may one day decide to grow a small garden.” Today, I received a scary chain email explaining that the provisions in the same bill will require all farms (and … Read More
My brain is on BBQ. Smoked, slow-cooked meat has no doubt lodged itself deep into the heart of Texas. But until last weekend, it had never really captured the fancy of me, this New York-New Jersey girl with no Southern roots to speak of. Until, that is, I went to Texas.
Once upon a time, I thought that ice cream “flavors” were just flavoring added to plain, perhaps vanilla, ice cream. “Chocolate” was dabbed in from a vial labeled so along with some fudge-colored dye, and “Strawberry” got its juice in much the same way, save for a few streaks of seeded fruit in some versions of the ice cream. Of course there were the chocolate chips and chopped nuts of Rocky Roads and other stuff-studded ice creams, but the bases … Read More
First of all, thanks to all the kind readers who voted for the panel, “Nom Nom Nom: The Secrets of Successful Foodblogging” to be presented at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival, back in the fall. Because I’m pleased to share that it is going to happen, in less than one week. Austin, here we come…