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01/09/13 • SHAVED ARTICHOKE SALAD From the March, 2012 Gourmet Happy New Year everyone! I’m writing this from the west Coast—Malibu to be precise—one of the few places in the country where it’s above freezing (well above, in fact; it’s 70˚ today and the skies are clear if a little hazy). I feel almost guilty sharing that information, knowing the miserable conditions so many of you are enduring back east. I can’t imag

12/05/13 • MUSTARD VINAIGRETTE From Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home I’ve gone back-and-forth about sharing this particular recipe with all of you—not because I don’t believe it’s one everyone should know about, but because it’s for salad dressing… and somehow that just seemed too minor to warrant its own posting. Except I know from experience how valuable the right salad dressing recipe can be. One or two good one

09/25/13 • SAUTEED MUSHROOMS From the Oct., 2013 Food and Wine Mushrooms can be a tough sell for a kid, particularly in their uncooked form when they’re just a little too spongy and strange for any but the most adventurous eater. I can remember the moment when that changed for me. It was around the big dining table at the house in northern Maine where my stepmother’s extensive family assembled every summer—one of tho

08/21/13 • TOMATO PIE From the Aug./Sept., 2013 Garden & Gun Every year around this time I begin to recognize with an internal thud that the season of fun is fast coming to an end. I seem to arrive at this realization later than most (many of my friends and family have been wringing their hands over this indisputable fact for weeks already) but eventually the truth creeps in, even for me. And so once again only a

07/25/13 • FRENCH GREEN BEAN SALAD A few weeks ago my dear friend Scott joined me for a weekend in East Hampton. Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say that I joined him, since even though he was nominally my houseguest, in my handicapped condition (still crutched and booted, I’m afraid), and with Alfredo traveling for work, I needed Scott to help me with a variety of tasks, not least of which was the 10

07/11/13 • ASIAN CHICKEN SALAD Adapted from the May, 2013 Bon Appétit Have you noticed how some of the cooking magazines have a page or two each month devoted to reader requests for favorite restaurant dishes? Well this is the spot where I would have included one of those myself, except that the recipe I’ve been wanting to bring to you, or more precisely the restaurant associated with it, is not the sort that believe

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

 09/20/12 • THE REAL-DEAL RATATOUILLE From Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking When I was growing up in Philadelphia in the 1970s, the French/Mediterranean vegetable casserole known as ratatouille seemed to be everywhere—sort of the way kale salads or pot pies are today. Or maybe it’s just that my mom was heavy into Julia Child’s the Art of French Cooking at the time, and that particular dish quickly be

08/30/12 • SAVORY SUMMER TART From the Sept., 2012 Elle Decor (click here to view the recipe) If you’re the sort of person who reflexively slows down whenever a roadside farm-stand comes into view, then you’ve officially entered whiplash season. That was my conclusion last weekend, anyway, as I tooled around the East End of Long Island and found my head repeatedly swiveling right, then left, then right again. Farm-st

08/16/12 • SIMPLE CORN SALAD From the Aug./Sept. Fine Cooking One of the questions I’m constantly asking myself when deciding what to post each week is whether a particular recipe falls within that sweet spot that will make it either so ridiculously easy that you don’t need me to tell you about it, or so complex that you’ll immediately dismiss it as unrealistic. This recipe for corn salad falls squarely in the former