The span of days between posts is creeping to greater and greater numbers, and I’ve been going back and forth between feeling guilty and defensive, between wanting to explain/justify/apologize for this obvious lapse and wanting to ignore it, pretend it’s not happening, hoping that in the grand scheme of the blog this summer will be [...]

I’m not one of those people who likes fresh berries best by the handful. I need them doctored: sugared and baked into pies, cobblers, and crumbles; blended with yogurt and honey and juice into a smoothie; churned into an ice cream; simmered into a sauce, compote, or jam. If I was my normal self these [...]

There are two things I can count on the husband to say every time we eat a meal together at home: (1) “Did you make a pie?” (this during the last bites of the meal) and (2) “Where’s the appetizer?” (this at the moment he walks in the door and sees that I’m still sweating [...]

Don’t be afraid! You’ve come to a happy place. Although I get why you might be wary and confused, because why on earth am I making gluten-free vegan cookies? Well. I have this gig where I test recipes from upcoming cookbooks, which I’ve mentioned before, and when my editor (I love saying that, “my editor”) gave me [...]

When you make these carrots (and you will make them), do yourself a favor and double the recipe because it’s really disappointing first of all to only have a teensy bit of them left over and more disappointing still to come home after a long, hard day of work and gym to discover that that [...]

I have a real big problem with Indian food, not because it gave me horrible, debilitating food poisoning the last two days of my honeymoon in Africa, but because whenever I try to cook it at home it just outright refuses to taste like anything even close to authentic. Great Indian food, especially when it’s [...]

Wow! Way to take completely inedible, well-past-their-prime tomatoes and turn them into a sweet and lovely concoction you’ll want to dump onto just about everything. To the husband, “everything” includes salads. Salads composed of green leaf lettuce and crumbled blue cheese. I do not endorse this. Instead, you should use this chutney as an excuse [...]

I’m particularly fond of any recipe with dried fruit and nuts (wonder why?), and this is one I’ve made multiple times. The husband finds the greens a bit bitter, which they are. But he seems particularly sensitive to bitterness whereas I handle it pretty well. Like it, even.

This is, to me, what cheesesteak pie is to the husband. It’s the best thing ever. Since I made it, I’ve been thinking about it nonstop. I want to eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In fact, I’m eating it right now. I think I may have to go out and buy another butternut squash [...]

Ahh. It does feel good to be back. I just spent 17 days in Israel with no computer, no cell phone, and no kitchen, feeling completely cut off from my normal life in the best possible way. What I treasure most about vacations are the totally inane daily decisions that take on such importance. Should [...]

I’m always surprised when people tell me they’ve never made hummus. It’s such a good candidate for home cooks because the payoff is so great. Homemade hummus takes almost no time at all and is far superior to anything you can buy at the grocery store, not to mention much more economical. Plus, there are so many [...]

This is exactly the kind of recipe I love. A little bit weird, something you’d never think of, maybe something you didn’t even think possible (when I told my mom I was making spelt crackers, her response was, “There’s a recipe for that?”). I love it when recipes surprise me, and I love surprising others [...]

“Good not great” (as in Dwight Schrute’s quick assessment of Michael Scott’s breath) is the phrase that keeps popping into my head when I think of this sorbet. It does the trick, the “trick” being that it satisfies the craving for something sweet and cold when you’re feeling too fat and/or guilty to have ice [...]

Summer is all about the cold or room temperature side dishes whipped up in the kitchen while (at the risk of being sexist here) your manly man is manning the grill. Here’s a classic three-bean salad for all your summer barbecue needs. It’s very sweet and tangy, with black-eyed peas added for a Southern twist, and because they’re [...]

It’s difficult to resist a pile of edibles that’s literally overflowing onto the asphalt, so when I spied these sugar snaps I felt compelled to help reduce the bounty. I like sugar snaps because they’re refreshing, and this recipe highlights their cool crunchiness. A recent unpleasant experience with fresh mint left me wary of the herb. (Fyi, fresh mint ice cream [...]

Sometimes this happens. I’ll be on the fence about posting a recipe, and then I’ll have the leftovers, and realize that oh, yes. People must be told of this. Now I am not a fan of fennel in its raw form (licorice, blech!), which is what drew me to this dish initially. Clotilde, creator of [...]

I normally steer clear of stir-fries. Anything that requires me to move quickly in the kitchen is automatically ruled out because, according to most people who know me, I am as slow-moving as a sloth. Or a snail. Or a slug. Your choice, I’ll accept comparison to any of these fine creatures any day. However, [...]

Who is David Chang? David Chang is the much-lauded chef/owner of a smattering of restaurants here in New York, all named Momofuku something-or-other. Last fall, he published a highly anticipated cookbook that revealed a bunch of the recipes from his restaurants. I’ve never laid eyes on the cookbook, nor have I been to any of the [...]

When we were in Portugal (waaayyy back in the day, 2004), we ate seafood for pretty much every meal. There were all of these outdoor restaurants lining the streets, and at many of them, they’d have their fresh seafood displayed in a refrigerator case and you could choose exactly which piece of fish you wanted. [...]

I hope you guys realize how lucky you are. You are gradually becoming privy to all my granola bar trade secrets. If anyone attempts to publish a compendium of these recipes for profit, I will hunt you down and I will kill you. (Yes, that is a threat.) These are intended for personal use only. [...]

When I was putting together my recipe index the other day, I was kind of horrified. I mean, I know that I made carrots and spinach and fish and bok choy last week and they just didn’t make it to the blog (you feel so cheated right now…I know), but what must you people think? What [...]

It’s time to relate a painful and shameful story from my past. It’s a story that only the people who are closest to me know, an incident that drudges up such shameful pain that I have tried to block it out these past few years. But you can’t escape your past, people, and you can’t undo [...]