Month

03/29/13 • CREAM SCONES From the April/May, 2013 Fine Cooking Ninety-nine postings ago—back when I first started this blog to be precise—I’d often define my vision for the site by jokingly telling friends the one thing it would never include: a scone recipe. (I know; hilarious.) At the time I genuinely felt like scones were overplayed in the U.S. (I still do, actually), which wouldn’t have mattered much except for th

03/21/13 • ITALIAN VEGETABLE STEW Adapted from the March, 2013 Bon Appétit Last month I attended a friend’s birthday dinner, and seated to both my left and my right were vegetarians. Ten years ago I could count on one hand the number of people I knew who had eliminated meat from their diet, and now I was surrounded by them! Of course, the same scenario could just as easily have occurred in the ’90s. But the chances o

03/14/13 • FIG AND OLIVE TAPENADE Adapted from the March, 2013 Food and Wine I’m not really one to complain about the weather. I grew up in Philadelphia, so winters that are cold, damp, and gray strike me as being part of the natural rhythm of things—the bargain you make for those warmer, sunnier months. This is actually a source of some conflict between Alfredo and me. As a child of Miami’s sunshine he tends to take

03/07/13 • VINEGAR-BRAISED CHICKEN Adapted from the Feb., 2013 Bon Appétit Recently someone told me that if an expectant mother wants to ensure her child has an adventuresome palate, she must eat as broadly as possible during her pregnancy—the idea being that whatever she consumes is more likely to become imprinted in her unborn child’s consciousness, thereby increasing the chances that the food, the flavor, whatever