It’s been rather a while since I’ve posted a recipe here, hasn’t it? I apologize that this wasn’t available before Thanksgiving, but truth be told I invented this pie for my own Thanksgiving table and so it simply wasn’t around long enough in advance for me to share it with you in time for that. [...]
All the best cookery is more than the sum of its parts. Pie is no exception. This pie has a total of 10 ingredients. 11 if you count water, which traditionally doesn’t get counted in recipe-writing. Your pie could have even fewer, potentially, and still be glorious. Pie crust should not scare you. If you [...]
豆豉 is what we’re talking about here: in Cantonese, roughly “dao see.” Not black turtle beans, not the kind of thing you make black bean soup out of. We’re talking salted, fermented black soybeans, prepared with or without ginger, as used to make black bean sauce dishes in the Chinese culinary vernacular. Black beans are [...]
Back to the housekeeping posts. I know, I know, but this morning was the time I had this week to do my own housekeeping. And yes, I got it all done, except for the laundry, by 10 am, so I figure I’m more or less qualified to run my mouth about how to get it [...]
It occurs to me that there are some things about housework that I was taught as a wee child, and which I consider pretty well foundational to making housework go easily and successfully, that it is just possible not everyone knows. So I thought I would share. Clean from top to bottom. Gravity works. Take [...]
The elderberry bushes I planted last year are now quite large and blooming profusely, so I decided it would be fun to try my hand at making my own elderflower liqueur. I’m a big fan of St. Germain liqueur, which has a great deal of elderflower in it (along with various fruits), and have enjoyed [...]
Let’s get this out of the way: some of you are going to think this is disgusting. That’s fine. You can think whatever you want. Some of us know better. In Sicily, they haven’t always had much to eat. But one thing they’ve always had a pretty steady supply of is sardines. Another is garlic. [...]
I love chickpeas. I would love them even if they weren’t cheap, but as it stands, the fact that they are a good value is just one of their many virtues. A pound bag of high-quality dried chickpeas will set you back about $1.69 at my nearby Wegman’s. Often they’re cheaper if you buy them [...]
I used to think making a demiglace was one of those tricksy Frenchy technique-y kitchen things that you had to have years of experience to do well. And, well, that’s sort of true. A real French demiglace is a bit tricksy, being a roux-based brown sauce that not a whole lot of people make any [...]
Our weekend here was prolonged, beginning with the arrival of our first set of guests on Thursday and continuing on until yesterday late afternoon. The hostessing continues, in actuality, until after dinner Tuesday night, but not quite so intensively. Sometimes it just gets like this around here — we have a lot of people who [...]