We all have ambitions. I wrote here about the dissonance between ideal meals imagined and the reality of meals cooked and eaten. There are plenty of nights when we eat interesting, delicious, even impressive and photogenic meals, but there are also plenty of nights—heck, plenty of weeks—where we are coming in the door at the … Continue reading
I learned a lesson the hard way last night. You might remember that I thought of both my kids as egg eaters—I even sort of bragged about it in this post. Egg lunches—either hard-boiled, or cheese scramble for my daughter and over-easy for my son—were in the regular rotation. But I’m not immune to all … Continue reading
If you have been lucky enough to visit Rome during artichoke season*, perhaps you’ve tasted the genius that is an artichoke cooked “alla giudia”—in the style popularized in the Jewish ghetto, where a cooked artichoke is smashed (maximizing surface area: genius) and then fried (tender artichoke with caramelized golden crispy edges: genius). Imagine my shock … Continue reading
It was probably the year 1999 that I was researching an ask Martha column* about caring for canaries that I came across an alarming fact: That canary owners should not use Teflon pans, because the fumes could kill their birds. The point of my research was to learn about birds, but I couldn’t help but … Continue reading
Lots of people who read this post, or who have had roasted potato wedges at my house, have asked for my technique—if you can actually apply that word to the process. Like so many other things, the way I make roast potatoes was streamlined and inadvertently improved after I had kids, just from sheer neglect. … Continue reading
