From Scratch

Recipes are not assembly manuals. Recipes are guides and suggestions for a process that is infinitely nuanced. Recipes are sheet music.
The quote is from Michael Ruhlman’s The Elements of Cooking and The New York Times calls them “Three of the most important sentences anyone reading about cookbooks may see this or any year.”
The Times’ special […]

After last season’s debacle, they ought to rename this show The Next Food Network Employee. And when it returns Sunday night, you and I will no longer have a say in the hiring. For Season 4, the FN judges, not the viewers, will choose the winner; viewers will only be able to vote for a weekly […]

So the other day I was in the produce department at the supermarket and was about to buy a few bananas at 79¢ per pound when I noticed a couple brown paper bags marked 99¢. Inside were eight or nine bananas and only a few were beginning to develop spots. I took one, a middle-aged […]

Like most people, when I think of vindaloo I think of a hot dish, one of the hottest on the menu, and one that needs a long and low stay in the oven. This vindaloo is different on both counts. It’s dinner on the table in well under an hour and it’s as mild — […]

I tried a recipe from last week’s Washington Post for a fast version of pork vindaloo – I’m posting it separately and the link is below. This mild paste was an alternative to jarred curry paste and I’m glad I tried it. It gave the dish a restaurant quality and would be wonderful with other […]

July 7 is changeup day for Chef Emeril Lagasse, whose long-running Emeril Live ceased production in December. That day, the Food Network will remove the reruns from its evening lineup and move the program to its sister channel, the Fine Living Network, to occupy the 7 PM slot seven days a week. Some new episodes are […]

Sometimes when I clean out the fridge I feel like Magellan: I know where I am, but occasionally wonder what on earth is that in front of me. It’s a long weekend with time to take a short quiz to find out what the contents of your refrigerator say about you. In my case, I’m neither […]

Who is Rupert Murdoch afraid of? Barack Obama, I guess. All three of this week’s Ramirez cartoons in Murdoch’s conservative New York Post were anti-Obama. Wednesday’s  was an example of a tired, lame editorial stance we ought to be past by now.

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Now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there.
Those were among the last words we heard Bobby Kennedy speak.
Hillary Clinton has apologized for invoking his 1968 assassination yesterday and Robert F Kennedy, Jr., who has endorsed her, issued a statement that said: “It is clear from the context that Hillary was invoking a familiar political […]

It’s not hyberbole. This really is the best marinade recipe I’ve ever used. It’s also a recipe for chicken fajitas, but I love the marinade so much I often use it on its own. 
This gets raves. The herbs are right, the acids are right and the chicken is moist and delectable whether it’s grilled outdoors or […]

We have a long holiday weekend coming up in the US for Memorial Day and it’s the unofficial start of grilling season with millions of cookouts planned. But they’re going to cost more this year. My country, like many others, is enduring higher food prices and the government says it’s going to get worse.
Last year food […]

“We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States of America.”
Senator Barack Obama’s words last night, outside the Capitol in Des Moines. It was a fitting return; January’s Iowa caucuses catapulted his […]

The convenience of no-bake fruit pies can’t be denied, but neither can their frequent shortcomings. Often they’re little more than a baked pie shell with fruit in a runny pool of syrup or they’re strawberries coated with a neon-red, artificial-tasting, cloyingly-sweet commercial glaze.
My mother used to make a no-bake strawberry pie that didn’t pool, but […]

It’s becoming almost farcical. After Hillary’s expected big win in West Virginia Tuesday, Obama picked up the support of enough superdelegates to take a small lead and is only 17 elected delegates away from a majority, but she refuses to admit defeat.
I’ll think of her the next time I watch Carrie, thanks to Frederick Deligne of France’s […]

Since I do practice what I advocate — cuisine d’opportunité – I have another, but very different, raspberry recipe on the heels of raspberry fool. I found gorgeous berries at a great price a few days ago and bought several containers; the savings with this raspberry vinaigrette recipe alone pays for them all.
I don’t know what bothers […]