Eat: A salad: ripe nectarines, pitted and cut into wedges + peeled chunked fresh cucumber in equal volume to nectarines + slivered raw sweet onion, as much as you like + shredded fresh mint leaves, a handful or so + fresh lemon juice, plenty + good olive oil, a healthy drizzle + salt to taste [...]
As a non-Chinese, white American cook who cooks a lot of Chinese and Chinese-style food, I have taken a particular interest in what happens to American ingredients when they’re used in a Chinese idiom. There’s been a fair amount written about “American Chinese food,” which as some of you probably know is its own culinary [...]
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 [...]
The last few days I have had a wonderful houseguest, visiting all the way from Melbourne, Australia. She’s vegetarian, and I had promised her vegan Chinese dumplings, so last night we made vegan wonton. There are a couple different ways you can roll with a vegan dumpling filling and still have it be pretty solidly [...]
This morning’s haul from the 32nd St. Farmer’s Market. I’ve been waiting and waiting for local asparagus.
In honor of the struggle of everyday Egyptians to win the right to try to build a just and fair government for themselves and their children, I hope you’ll join me in a plate or two of Egypt’s national dish, ful medames. There are probably thousands of ways to make this, as is true with [...]
The other day I was in a grocery store selecting a nice bunch of carrots with their briliant green, dizzily lacy plume-y tops still on and a woman nearby exhorted me to try a bag of the “baby” carrots instead, saying cheerily “You don’t have to do anything, you can just eat them.” I started [...]
Most people are terribly busy at this time of year. I am something of an exception to this, having decided some years ago that I was done with trying to travel between Hallowe’en and the New Year unless there were an unavoidable emergency. This has been a remarkably successful policy in terms of keeping my [...]
Sea salt caramels aside, Americans have been slow to warm to the idea of combining savory and sweet. There are occasional exceptions, like fruit-based salsas, or honey-mustard combinations, and of course sweet molasses-y barbecue sauces. But whenever I talk about things like, say, the classic French noisettes de porc aux prunes, which is an out-of-this-world [...]
Tagged apples, cauliflower, soupThe air is getting cooler here. It was almost cold this morning when I walked the dog, thrilling to feel on my bare arms while we walked the sun up out of the clouds. I am thinking about fall, my favorite season of the year, and how grateful I am that I will be spending [...]