04/26/12 • The D.I.Y. Burger! From America’s Test Kitchen (click here to view the recipe) Where cooking is concerned, you take your inspiration where you find it. I’d like to tell you that for me it tends to come from what’s on most vibrant display at the farmer’s market, but this wouldn’t be exactly true (although the recent arrival of asparagus—mountains of it, a seeming bumper crop—has certainly got my wheel

04/19/12 • VEGGIE CURRY IN A HURRY! From America’s Test Kitchen As you’ve all figured out by now, I have a natural inclination for anything in the animal fat or carbohydrate department (see the previous three postings for further confirmation: coconut cake anyone?)! Still, even a guy like me who can happily tear into a wedge of Gouda and a bag of crackers and call it dinner sometimes hits a wall — a wall on whi

04/12/12 • EASY CHEESE SPREAD From Canal House Cooking, vol. no. 6 It’s still hard to believe that Spring is here already. And by “Spring” I don’t just mean the official, calendar-defined season, but rather the one marked by the appearance of small green buds on just about everything — even that sad little shrub I pass on my way to work each morning that I figured was surely destined for the trash heap. Here in NYC t

04/05/12 • SPRING-IT-ON CAKE! From the Dec., 2005 Gourmet (click here to view the recipe)   For much of my life, coconut has been among the small list of foods I felt certain would never win me over. It’s an exclusive group that also boasts liver of any kind (I do make an exception where pate or terrine is concerned), anything that falls in the offal category (“awful” is more apt), and anchovies. In other words,

03/29/12 • PARM PERFECTION From the Jan., 2011 Martha Stewart Living (click here to view the recipe) It’s funny how a dish that’s been around for what seems like forever can suddenly catch on again, showing up on the pages of cookbooks and cooking magazines with renewed currency. Such has recently been the case with one of my all-time favorites (obsessions, really) — chicken parmigiana. For years I’ve had a weakness

03/22/12 • BEST BROWN BREAD From the March, 2012 Saveur (click here to view the recipe) I had to try it. There are times when I’ll be casually flipping through a cookbook or a cooking magazine and land on an image, or a recipe, or even a headline, and something about the item in question will grab hold of me in such a way that it becomes the thing I must make, and eat, as soon as possible. Such was the case with this

03/15/12 • KALE AND HEARTY From the Nov., 2011 Bon Appetit (click here to view the recipe) Several weeks ago, in my posting for French chocolate cake, I promised to return soon with something healthier and less guilt-inducing — “a kale salad or some such,” were, I believe, the words I chose to capture this as yet undiscovered healthful item. Now as you’ve probably observed from my previous nine months of recipe refle

03/08/12 • FISH DINNER WINNER From the July, 2007 Gourmet (click here to view the recipe) I don’t know about you, but when I see fish on a menu — any kind of fish — I tend to glaze over. This doesn’t make much sense because I actually like fish; I have no seafood phobias and I often cook fish at home. What’s more, when scanning a restaurant’s options, I’m often looking for an alternative to red meat (which is a

03/01/12 • BEST BREAKFAST BURRITO! From Fine Cooking (click here to view the recipe) I don’t get to L.A. all that often — maybe once or twice a year, if that — but on those occasions when I do, a favorite thing to do there is visiting the Farmer’s Market, the one at Third and Fairfax. Of course, without access to a working kitchen, these excursions are generally less about shopping for some future meal (though I’ve b

02/23/12 • A LAYERED PERFORMANCE From Elle Decor (click here to view the recipe) Maybe it comes from growing up in a house where Sunday football was the sort of social event that had family, friends, even a few of my stepfather’s graduate students, gathered around the television, feasting on sandwiches and anything else my mom brought out of the kitchen, but today I like nothing more than inviting a group over for fo