Ah, to be a currant, sunning in the Greek Isles. Especially on a day like today: gray and cold. Except, it turns out, the currants I have in my pantry aren’t really currants at all, though they have been called that in the U.S. for the past hundred years or so. “Zante currants,” as the [...]
Miso-Marinated Tri-Tip
A reader comment (thanks, Margot!) from the miso soup post led to a DELICIOUS marinade for meats. I put it on beef, but I bet it also would be good on pork. The marinade makes the meat slightly salty and spicy. The sugar in the ponzu helps create a nice crust. I absolutely love this [...]
Christmas Cookies: Russian Tea
One word: BUH-duh. What else do you think makes cookies taste so good? These tried-and-true favorites have been a Christmas staple in my family for decades. I don’t cut out cookies, remember? So these chill-and-roll treats are a good choice when the season calls for some emergency baking. (Like, perhaps, at 10:00 p.m. on the [...]
Spaghetti with Swiss Chard and Toasted Garlic Breadcrumbs
Anyone read Dwell magazine? It’s one of my favorites, with lots of what one friend calls “architecture porn.” Where am I going with this, you ask. How could anyone make an analogy between architecture and pasta? It’s a stretch, I’ll admit, but this dish somehow makes me think of a modest, modern 1,200-square-foot house built [...]
Butterflied Chicken with Rosemary Gremolata
Yah, I know gremolata is traditionally made with parsley and is used raw as a condiment, but since I was going to be cooking it, I wanted something more pungent. Using REALLY local ingredients, I snipped a few sizeable pieces of rosemary from our backyard. The rosemary bush is growing out of control – but [...]
Vanilla Panna Cotta with Yuzu-Lemon Thyme Gelée
Thanks to this blog, I now have more than a dozen cups of panna cotta in my fridge. Depending on how you look at it, this is either a good or a bad thing. Typically, a plethora of dessert makes me happy. Unfortunately, the test batches in the refrigerator range from “great!” to “um, what [...]
Miso good
This whole blogging thing is interesting because it’s pushing me to spend time finding out about ingredients that I have been taking for granted. This time it’s miso. I have a really quick miso soup that I whip up when I don’t feel like making anything for dinner and the market on the way home [...]
All Rise…
The egg. What do you really know about it? It has whites. It has a yolk. And it makes a mean breakfast or killer dessert. But its most important property, to me at least, remained shrouded in mystery after I racked my brain for the answer, and even consulted the Joy of Cooking bible – [...]
Last of the Bunch
A number of years ago, I was at a friend’s place and I opened his freezer to get some ice and came across…an outrageous stockpile of frozen bananas. I soon learned that my friend, who doesn’t cook, felt overwhelming guilt when he let the bananas go past their prime – and so instead of throwing [...]