I can’t find anything bad to say about this pantry meal. I made it one night accidentally, when I was craving a light pasta dish with maybe a little sundried tomato and some fresh artichoke, neither of which my local Associated Market had. It was getting late, and I didn’t feel up for walking much farther than a block. It had just begun to rain. So dismayed and with lowered expectations as I was, I wandered into my corner bodega … 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
Two summers ago I tried to grow basil, parsley, dill and another herb I can no longer remember in small pots placed on my old apartment window ledge. They didn’t make it very long. Some, which I had decided to plant from seeds, were never even born. The whole dirt-caked affair was so sorry that I refused owning any herbs, or plants for that matter, all last summer. And fall, winter, then spring. This summer, I’m turning over a new … Read More
A lovely article in the New York Times Magazine last week that aimed to decode the recipe behind the perfect bowl of cold sesame noodles was all the excuse I needed to indulge you with another testament to my fondness for the dish. It’s an unconditional love that extends from the classic cold staple to a decidedly spicy variety that I like to prepare hot. Yes, hot. I’m not exactly sure how or when I learned to enjoy this dish, … Read More
“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
Ah, the good ol’ two-step. Like the dance, this one carries a myriad of variations. Then again, I never did learn the dance, in any style, and now I kind of wonder what happened to that swing and formal dance revival that took hold of the city several years ago. For that matter, what happened to any kind of dance craze? There has been a bit of a granola craze going on as far as I can tell — everywhere … Read More
I got an ice cream maker. I was watching the episode of Good Eats all about premium ice cream and how simple it was to make, and the next day I ran out to buy an ice cream maker. For $50 I’ll never have to go to the corner bodega to grab a pint of Haagen-Dazs again — sweet. The first batch, a basic vanilla ice cream made from the recipe in the Cuisinart machine’s instruction booklet, was refreshing, sweet, … Read More
I am convinced that stuffed peppers, like soup, are a true leftover invention, and that’s just what I stuffed my poblano peppers with for these chile rellenos. In most cases the preferred grain would be rice, but since I had some potatoes I used them along with some leftover chicken. I’ve also come to suspect that most anything when stuffed inside a smoky, roasted poblano pepper will taste good — that is, if you like smoky, roasted poblano peppers.
In celebration of “soup month” February and all the cold, soup-worthy weather we’ve been having recently, here’s my contribution to Soup’s On at A Veggie Venture. It’s funny how much the texture of warm chickpeas can parallel that other vegetable commonly paired with leek in a soup–the potato. While leeks cook up insistently savory, the chickpea balances as a more neutral, slightly nutty accoutrement. Thinking more or less of hummous, a little cumin went into this, soft roasted garlic, a … Read More