I cook because I love to eat. I garden because I love to cook.
I don’t need to tell anyone that the heat and humidity of July and August in New York is unbearable, and getting worse in a climate changing world. The air is as hot and thick as split pea soup, hearty and warming in winter, but …
Overabundance in the garden is a problem I can deal with. To even use the word ‘problem’ is a stretch. Nonetheless, when there is too much of a given crop in the heart of its harvesting season, the gardener must find a way to use …
After my first year of college, I decided to move out of the dorm. I still lived in a college-owned house with a handful of other students, but I was free of the dorm’s noisy hallways and the cafeteria that came with it. I relished …
When it comes to chicken, I used to prefer white meat. Firm and homogenous, with no fatty blobs or errant veins, the breast is cleaner, leaner, and neater than dark meat. But over the years my point of view has changed; I have turned to …
Some foods are so simple and obvious and delicious that you want to eat them all the time. These foods make so much sense that you think to yourself, “Why didn’t I think of this?” or “Why haven’t I been cooking this all of my …
When our contractor was rebuilding our porch one spring after the old rotting one almost ripped away from our house in an ice storm the previous winter, I had just added a 4 x 4 foot raised bed of strawberries to the garden. The porch …
I can only imagine what it would have been like for my ancestors – both the caveman types thousands of years ago, wherever they were, and those just over a century or so before, in little villages somewhere in what is now Ukraine. After a …
The meatloaf sandwiches that my brothers and I were compelled to take for school lunch – lest we starve – were lacking in several components that make sandwiches such fine fare for a midday meal. In fact, they were so bad that they have become …
Some foods are a blank slate; they are a vehicle for other flavors. Take escargot, for example. They’re probably not too exciting on their own, but as a way to get your fix of garlic butter, they can’t be beat. Boneless, skinless chicken breast and …
We all make mistakes in the kitchen. Sometimes they are rookie moves, like the first time I roasted a turkey leaving the neck and bag of giblets inside. These novice errors can usually be chalked up to ignorance. How was I supposed to know they …
