Month: September 2005
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Doesn't that look glowing and warm and comforting and delicious? I thought so, too. And yet. I'd better tread carefully here, because apparently the recipe I made last night is the recipe to end all recipes. Reprinted every single year in the New York Times for 15 years running, or something like that. Let me…
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Summer is coming to an end, but basil plants are still pushing on determinedly. What to do with that bunch of basil going slowly limp in your crisper? It’s more obvious than obvious, of course, but a pesto whirred together in your food processor is a quick way to preserve some of that summer aroma…
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Oh boy, I’m "it". Cath, from A Blithe Palate, tagged me for my very first meme. This food-blogging community is quite a friendly and active one! I am supposed to go through my posts until I stumble on the 23rd one, then seek out the 5th line, post it here along with some insights into…
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Searching for an authentic version of panzanella – that Italian salad made up basically of stale bread and fresh tomatoes – proved more difficult than I expected. Many recipes online and in cookbooks included fennel, raw garlic, tuna, chickpeas, Parmigiano, boiled eggs, and other such out-of-place ingredients that didn’t really fulfill my ideas of one…
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Nothing beats the smell of home-baked bread, except maybe the sense of accomplishment that comes along with it. That these fragrant, plump, and crusty loaves would have been the result of the somewhat ornery recipe published in last week's L.A. Times, was not what I expected. I was looking forward to baking bread, but when…
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Blini are those smallish Russian pancakes made from buckwheat flour, often topped off with a cap of sour cream and a spoonful of caviar. In a recent article in the L.A. Times about corn, Russ Parsons fiddled with a recipe from Jeremiah Tower for cornmeal blini, adding fresh corn and jalapeno peppers. They were to…
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What do you do when the gloriously perfumed stone fruit that you so carefully selected from large bins at the market one day, transitions too quickly from the promise of juicy, pliant flesh to an almost decadent state of over-ripeness? Slice away the offending areas, douse in an acidic slosh of citrus juice and booze,…
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It looks like a muffin or a sunken cupcake, but nothing about this delicious little cake even comes close to either one of those more pedestrian sweets. This luscious cakelet, courtesy of David Lebovitz's pastry chef genius, is like a mousse and a souffle and the lightest imaginable flourless chocolate confection all wrapped into one.…
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Back in August, the New York Times published a small article on summer chowders. Usually chowder calls up the image of those rich, cream-heavy seafood soups so common in fall and winter in New England. But the article focused instead on lightened warm-weather versions. Less cream and more vegetables set these soups apart from their…
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Dear readers, I have been humbled. After being somewhat scornful of the roasted peppers I made last night, I had some cooled to room temperature for lunch. And what had seemed bland and a bit forgettable yesterday was concentrated and delicious today. It's not exactly rocket science that leftovers (when not chilled to tooth-aching temperatures)…
The Wednesday Chef 