Month

07/28/11  • APRICOT ALMOND TART From the July 13th, 2011 New York Times (click here to view the recipe) Is it possible I’ve never tasted an apricot before? That was the question running through my head recently as I picked among a small mountain of this most summery of fruits. I could certainly recall eating the dried version (both plain and chocolate-covered — especially chocolate-covered), and, of course, the kind

07/21/11 • SMOKIN’ FRIED CHICKEN From the June/July, 2011 Fine Cooking (click here to view the recipe) One of my favorite food memories from childhood was when my mother would cook up a batch of her amazing fried chicken. Back then, with a fulltime job and three kids to feed, she’d maximize her efforts by frying enough chicken parts to last the week — something which typically meant her having to stand at the s

07/14/11 • LULU’S TUNA BURGER From Cook’s Illustrated Summer Entertaining, 2011 (click here to view the recipe) One of the magical things about food is the way it can instantly trigger a memory or a feeling, much the way a piece of music can. Of course, depending on the particular circumstances of the meal in question that can be good, bad, or somewhere in-between — a reality I’ve been grappling with as I’ve tr

07/08/11 • LUNCH, LOUISIANA-STYLE From the June, 2011 Bon Appetit (click here to view the recipe) One of the rewards of working on this blog has been the fact that it’s forced me to cook outside my comfort zone — to try those things that in the past might have made me slow down for a moment and say, “Oh, that looks good,” but which for whatever reason seemed too intimidating to actually try myself. Case in point: the

07/05/11 • BEST STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE From the June/July, 2011 Fine Cooking (click here to view the recipe) One of my summer dessert standards is something I call “cheater’s strawberry shortcake” — basically a good store bought pound cake (there’s a lemon glazed variety at Citarella that I like a lot for this), topped with macerated strawberries and whipped cream, sweetened with a little sugar and vanilla. It’s pretty

07/01/11 • CLASSIC POTATO SALAD From the June/July, 2011 Saveur (click here to view the recipe) When summer rolls around I find there are certain foods I’m drawn to that during the rest of the year barely register on my desirability meter. For some of these this has to do with an impulse to capitalize on what’s freshest and most in season, but for others it’s simply a Pavlovian response to the weather and everything