Category

SOUPS & STEWS

10/30/13 • JACQUES PÉPIN’S BEEF STEW

10/30/13 • JACQUES PÉPIN’S BEEF STEW From the April, 2007 Food and Wine Towards the end of last winter, as the days were getting longer and the damp, New York City chill was just beginning to loosen its pincer-like grip, I made a dish I’m often drawn to when it’s cold outside: beef stew. From this you might assume that stew is a particular favorite of mine, and it’s true that when said dish features a rich, robust sa
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08/27/13 • CREAMY ZUCCHINI SOUP

08/27/13 • CREAMY ZUCCHINI SOUP From the Sept., 2013 Food & Wine Soup is one of those food groups that as a rule fail to excite me. With the exception of a really cold winter’s day when a hot bowl of soup suddenly seems like a good idea, soup is usually the last thing you’ll find me eating (the one exception is my longtime Chinese restaurant favorite, hot and sour soup—something I’ll happily consume in any kind o
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03/21/13 • ITALIAN VEGETABLE STEW

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
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01/10/13 • LUSTY KALE SOUP

01/10/13 • LUSTY KALE SOUP Adapted from the Jan., 2001 Gourmet  Few conversations are less promising than ones that begin with the words: “I had the most amazing dream last night!” Such is the nature of our unconscious wanderings that they’re never as interesting to the person hearing about them as they are to the mind in which they unspooled (unless, of course, you’re Sigmund Freud). Still, at the risk of putting yo
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12/13/12 • HUNGRY-MAN’S HUNGARIAN-GOULASH

12/13/12 • HUNGRY-MAN’S HUNGARIAN-GOULASH Adapted from The Hamptons: Food, Family, and History, by Ricky Lauren (Wiley) Long before I recognized my mom for the excellent cook she is, it was my German-born grandmother who I held up as the master of all things kitchen-related. Her name was Freda Schloss (Nana Freda to me), and it was she who introduced me to things like herring in cream sauce, and poached eggs sp
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10/25/12 • COMFORT FOOD, CUBAN-STYLE

10/25/12 • COMFORT FOOD, CUBAN-STYLE Adapted from the April, 2012 Saveur Many years ago, early on in my relationship with Alfredo, he took me to eat at an inexpensive Cuban restaurant on 8th Avenue—a narrow, brightly lit place called Havana Chelsea. This was to be my big introduction to Cuban cooking, the cuisine Alfredo had grown up eating, and it was something I was looking forward to. What I hadn’t anticipated, ho
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07/26/12 • BEST (COLD!) BEET SOUP

07/26/12 • BEST (COLD!) BEET SOUP From Canal House Cooking, Volume No. 1 When it comes to hot weather dining strategies, some people advise that the best approach is to turn up the heat—be it in the form of spiciness or of temperature. And as counterintuitive as that may sound, these heat-seeking advocates may well have a point. (For my self, there seems to be a direct correlation between a spike in temperature and a
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02/16/12 • A SUPER BOWL OF CHILI

02/16/12 • A SUPER BOWL OF CHILI From America’s Test Kitchen (click here to view the recipe) As you might have guessed from the title, this posting was intended to serve as my contribution to your Super Bowl Sunday, which, of course, has long since come and gone. I confess I got a little jammed up in my planning, plus I wasn’t happy with the photos and felt compelled to do a reshoot. So here’s my recipe recommendatio
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01/19/12 • HOT AND SOUR CHILL-CHASER

01/19/12 • HOT AND SOUR CHILL-CHASER From America’s Test Kitchen (click here to view the recipe) Short and sweet will be the M.O. for this week’s posting . . . though given its subject, perhaps short and sour would be a more apt description. You see I’ve got a cold — not so bad that I’m stuck at home in bed, but bad enough that I can’t seem to string a coherent sentence together. I’ve arrived at this conclusion somew
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11/10/11 • SAUSAGE STEW

11/10/11 • SAUSAGE STEW From the Oct., 2011 Food & Wine I tend to think of stew as a uniquely American creation. This may have something to do with the fact that one of the first stews I ever knew and loved was a classic beef variety that the housekeeper at my dad and step-mother’s house used to make for us when I was a kid. Her name was Helen and while I can’t claim to ever having been one of her favorites (she
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