Category

BREADS & SANDWICHES

04/16/13 • VIETNAMESE PANCAKES

04/16/13 • VIETNAMESE PANCAKES From the March, 2013 Food and Wine The arrival of warmer weather—or even the promise of it—invariably starts me yearning for the sort of spicy, exotic food I might encounter on a far-flung adventure somewhere. Most of the time it’s an urge I satisfy with a visit to a favorite Indian or Korean restaurant (I have a serious weakness for kimchee), though increasingly I’m experimenting with
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02/28/13 • EASY RYE BREAD

02/28/13 • EASY RYE BREAD Adapted from My Bread: The Revolutionary no-work, no-knead Method by Jim Lahey Many years ago I made the silly decision to swear off bread. I’d like to say this had something to do with an effort at eating more healthfully, but the truth is it was driven by the simple desire to firm up my stomach—a goal I understood to be attainable if I laid off foods made from flour (and if I did a lot of
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12/06/12 • POPOVERS WITH A PLUS

12/06/12 • POPOVERS WITH A PLUS Adapted from the Dec., 2012 Bon Appétit Many years ago, when I was around 3 or 4 years old, my parents decorated the eating area in our house with a hilarious poster of a smiling, middle-aged Asian guy holding a sandwich he’d presumably just taken a bite out of. Above his head were the words, “You don’t have to be Jewish,” and below it the phrase’s now famous kicker: “to love Levy’s re
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11/29/12 • BANANA BREAD UNBOUND

11/29/12 • BANANA BREAD UNBOUND Adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Although this posting is nominally about banana bread, in a larger sense it’s also about cravings, since that’s the category for me in which this particular item falls. Of course, we all have certain foods we find ourselves yearning for from time-to-time, it’s just that some of us (arrow pointed to self here) seem to have more cravings than others—a
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10/18/12 • D.I.Y. DEEP-DISH PIZZA

10/18/12 • D.I.Y. DEEP-DISH PIZZA Adapted from Lidia’s Italy in America, by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tania Bastianich Manuali (Knopf) One of my earliest memories is of throwing a tantrum so epic that despite reasoning, pleading, and finally multiple angry warnings, my mom had no choice but to haul me out of the West Philadelphia swim club where we were spending our Sunday afternoon and drag me home. The reason
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10/11/12 • DEVILISH EGG SALAD

10/11/12 • DEVILISH EGG SALAD Adapted from the May, 2012 Bon Appétit As a kid any number of things could make an appearance in my lunchbox that would immediately cause me to slam it shut, or propel me to the nearest trash can (lest any of my classmates catch sight of the offending item and start their humiliating chorus of Ewwwwwwwww!s). Among these reactive items: liverwurst, Brie and onions on a baguette (my mom wa
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09/13/12 • DREAMING IN EMPANADAS

09/13/12 • DREAMING IN EMPANADAS From the May, 2010 Cook’s Illustrated (click here to view the recipe) It’s taken me a while to get this recipe to you, but it’s one that’s been on my mind since early summer. Remember those weeks in the beginning of June, when you still couldn’t quite believe it was light at 8:30 PM and it seemed like those long, warm days would stretch on forever? Well it was around that time that I
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08/03/12 • STREET EATS, ASIAN-STYLE

08/03/12 • STREET EATS, ASIAN-STYLE From the May, 2012 Food & Wine (click here to view the recipe) Greetings from the Olympics!! . . . Well, not really, although in some ways my head is still at “the games” (or maybe I just left it in Heathrow’s Terminal Three, while making a mad dash for my flight to the U.S. late Tuesday). In other words, I may technically be back at my desk in New York City, but I don’t feel e
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05/24/12 • THE SOFT-SHELL SELL

05/24/12 • THE SOFT-SHELL SELL Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook, Vol. II (1972)  Sometimes a craving demands immediate satisfaction. In the case of a donut, or a piece of chocolate, or even a pastrami sandwich, often the easiest way to resolve this condition is by getting yourself to the nearest quality purveyor, loading up, and moving on—freed, at least temporarily, from that distracting state otherwise known as de
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04/26/12 • THE D.I.Y. BURGER!

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
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