I cook because I love to eat. I garden because I love to cook.
It’s early April and the weather is conflicted. Some days give a hint of what’s to come; warm and sunny, with birds squawking to attract mates and protect their territories. Other days are cold and dreary. Not snow-filled, but rainy and gray, and chilly to …
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 …
My wife sometimes calls me the Angry Chef. I guess it’s a nickname well deserved, but only from my past. Our first apartment together, in the early days, was the entire second floor of an old Victorian house on Long Island. We had a small …
Growing up, dinners in our house were on a schedule that repeated weekly. Tuesday and Thursday, refried beans and tortillas. Wednesday, homemade pizza. Friday was almost always chicken, either at one of my grandmothers’ apartments or cooked by my father. I have no recollection what …
In my youth I can’t say that I was a fan of mushrooms. I would never eat them outright. If someone insisted on a pizza with mushrooms, I would reluctantly manage, although pizza-topping mushrooms back then were mostly wet, slimy, canned things, with little to …
My family has been eating at the same Chinese restaurant – Lee How Fook – going on 40 years. Located on the edge of Philadelphia’s Chinatown, generations of the same family have cooked for and served us, just as generations within my family have dined …
January is a bleak month in the garden. There is little growth, and so by leaps and bounds the most exciting activities are perusing catalogues to order seeds for the coming year and planting cabbage, kale, and leek seeds under lights in the basement to …
I didn’t grow up eating much Italian food. As a kid, I was under the false impression that Italian restaurants only served spaghetti and meatballs; in my mind, nothing else was available. Then I grew up and moved to Long Island. Italian food is the …
I am not a baker. It’s not that I have disdain for baked goods; in fact, I rather like them. It’s the precision of baking with which I have trouble. Exact measuring is not my style of cooking. Perhaps that’s why after receiving my Master’s …
My wife Marci loves eggs. She always has. She talks about eating a soft boiled egg every morning when she was young. When she was pregnant with our son, she couldn’t get enough eggs. One wonders if that played a role in why he is …
