From Scratch

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to dress up a dinner plate. This simple timbale achieves that while adding a bit of height and best of all, it can be done ahead.
This recipe is from Marlene Sorosky’s Fast & Festive Meals for the Jewish Holidays, but the cookbook is for anyone who likes good food. […]

Tom Snyder died of leukemia yesterday. He was 71. He was a radio and television pioneer, legendary enough to have been fondly spoofed on Saturday Night Live. If you’ve forgotten — or if you’ve never known — how good and often-newsworthy a talk show can be in the hands of a master,  please enjoy this tribute […]

This is a summer favorite. It’s chilled, it’s lemony-refreshing, it’s pasta and it’s a snap to make. Technically it’s a side dish, but I’ve also eaten it as a main course, adding veggies or protein to it or having it with greens or fruit salad.
When this recipe ran in The New York Times — I believe it […]

As a lifelong Yankee fan, I’m still upset about Roger Maris’s asterisk. And as a baseball fan, I’m way upset about steroid use in general and Barry Bonds’ doping in particular as hallowed records fall. JD Crowe spoke for me and millions others –cleverly — in the Mobile Register on Tuesday.
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We’ve all heard the camera adds ten pounds. During this past week’s (inexplicable, except as filler) mid-season Top Chef reunion the head judge, Chef Tom Colicchio, put a reality-show spin on the adage: 
The camera adds ten pounds of bitch.
I doubt I was the only one who thought immediately of Season One’s Tiffani. I’m so glad she lost. […]

You might be facing an abundance of basil around now, either in your own garden or at farmers’ markets. We’re still a bit away from that stage here in The Little Snowball, but when it’s local and fresh I buy an armful, some for now and some for later.
How much later? A grower gave me […]

Two months after it opened, The New York Times has reviewed Perilla, the restaurant launched by Top Chef Season One winner Harold Dieterle, and has awarded it one star (”Good”) on a scale of zero to four.
Critic Frank Bruni says the “cautious list of entrees” could have evolved from a focus group. About the restaurant […]

High summer is prime time for green salads and burgers; many people do not share my aversion to mayo and love Thousand Island dressing on both. It’s a long-time American favorite, popular for about a century. That much we know for sure.
Several legends compete for the story of its origin. According to Wikipedia, it might have […]

It’s painful so far, just a few minutes into a ground-breaking experiment in which Democratic presidential candidates are answering questions from the citizenry, submitted via YouTube. (Why we, as a nation, continue to call what are essentially glorified news conferences “debates” is beyond me.)
Host Anderson Cooper flubbed his second sentence and another soon after. As […]

I’ve always loved soup, especially cold soup in hot weather, and there is more to summertime soup than just gazpacho. Jacques Pépin’s soups are favorites. They are generally simple, relying on just a few top-notch ingredients, and always delicious; many use a touch of something unexpected, such as the sesame oil in Velvet of Carrot or the Tabasco […]

John McCain’s presidential campaign is on life support, with dwindling staff and money. The heady days of the Straight Talk Express are long gone as Jimmy Margulies reminded us Wednesday in the New Jersey Record.
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Yes, just my opinion but at some point Top Chef needs to eliminate two people in one episode. This series is becoming tedious, almost painfully so; beginning with 14 contestants instead of 12, as in Season 1, has not done a thing to increase my enjoyment. To the contrary.
There are so many contestants there are some […]

Mark Bittman, aka The Minimalist, offers 101 ideas for quick, simple meals in the food section of today’s New York Times. They’re intended to get us in and out the kitchen in about ten minutes, with main courses that often use summer’s bounty and are better than takeout.
Some are expected, such as #12: boil a […]

There are several dishes I took for granted in New York; they were everywhere and it never occured to me to make them at home. Cold sesame noodles are in that group. It’s almost impossible in my part of New England to find a Chinese restaurant that serves them. I found them only twice: a white-tablecloth place […]

I always enjoy Chef Tom Colicchio’s weekly Top Chef blog posts on Bravo’s annoying website; some weeks I enjoy the blog more than the episode. This week, Anthony Bourdain is a guest blogger subbing for Colicchio and it’s a delightful read. His culinary background and guest-judging stints give him a fine perspective for commentary; his writing […]