Month: June 2006
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After my vacation, when I could blissfully expect others to take over the reins at the stove and produce any number of delicious things (rabbit with rosemary or homemade tagliatelle with meat ragu and fresh peas, for example); where melons and apricots and tomatoes and zucchini tasted like the versions of themselves that we dream…
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What a week it’s been. Books were read, new swimsuits were purchased, berries were picked, families were bonded, mosquitos attacked, a wedding was attended, much suntanning occurred, and it all happened far too fast. I’m a lucky girl to have such an idyllic haven in Italy. Saying goodbye is absolutely wretched. In an attempt to…
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For the next 10 days, I'll be in Italy visiting my mother and my grandfather (that's his tool shed you see up there) and various other members of my Italian family for some much-needed rest and relaxation. I plan on cooking very little, reading quite a bit, and watching as much soccer as I possibly…
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This seems like just the week for chilled, vegetal soups. Especially ones enriched with buttermilk and yogurt, giving the pureed vegetables a pleasant tang and lactic heft. As for ease of preparation, there isn’t much that’s simpler than chopping up a few cukes and avocados, and blitzing them into liquescence with some salt, sugar, vinegar…
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Did you know this man could cook? I'm sure most of you remember him as the belligerent ghost who tried to kick Patrick Swayze off the train in Ghost, but Schiavelli was also a gourmand and a writer who chronicled his childhood spent hanging around his Sicilian family in Brooklyn. I used to work at…
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I have absolutely nothing to tell you about cooking-wise, because I spent the entire weekend devouring this book. It is the best thing I’ve read all year, and, people, I read for a living. Bill Buford, the former fiction editor for The New Yorker, worked as an unpaid grunt in Mario Batali’s kitchen at Babbo…
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Reading about regional American food makes me go all soft inside. An interesting narrative, simple ingredients, straightforward preparation – it makes for a good book and usually pretty good eats. Maybe it's because I haven't seen very much of rural America, or because much of that kind of narrative is bound up in the romantic…
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Despite the incessant rain over New York City, last night's dinner called for something light and colorful and nutritious: a counterbalance to a weekend of baked beans and chocolate, and the perfect dinner-for-one. The recipe comes from the chef at Jer-ne in Marina del Rey and was printed in an LA Times article about the…
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To those of you who have a waning interest in my childhood and how it came to be that I spent much time in Germany with my mother and yet also a large amount of time in Massachusetts with my father, let me tell you that it's far too complicated and long-winded to explain on…
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I'm kind of a sissy when it comes to grilling. Growing up in Germany, having a barbecue always seemed so utterly and entirely American. After all, the Americans did it best: juicy burgers with their toasty buns, spicy chicken slathered in barbecue sauce, gooey marshmallows falling off of scavenged twigs. My family in Italy would…
The Wednesday Chef 