Photograph from seaworthy on Flickr Panzanella (tomato-bread salad) and pappa al pomodoro (tomato-bread soup) both intimidated me as a home cook—until a couple of loaves of old bread forced me into trying them. As it turns out, it’s pretty hard... More

Photograph from Mar Mar on Flickr Ten years ago, when I turned twenty-one, I had never fallen head over heels in love, and I had never cared for guacamole. Then I met a charming boy who urged me to spend... More

Here’s a confession: until recently I did not really understand the appeal of pie. As a child I didn’t care for things that were crisp and buttery, like shortbread and crust, and that was that. In the past few years,... More

©iStockphoto.com/Suzifoo People don’t eat collard greens often enough, probably because they just haven’t tried them—they look deceptively old-fashioned and limp, like something on offer at a depressing cafeteria or prepared by your grandmother who isn’t such a good cook. When... More

Crab cakes are one of those things that always look powerfully enticing on a menu but that I almost never order. They’re too expensive, or I’m feeling too fat to eat fried food, or—and this is usually the dealbreaker for... More

I'm about to type a cop-out phrase that I would immediately cut if I were editing someone else's work: I don't know if I can find words to express how I feel about strawberry shortcake. More

©iStockphoto.com/Juanmonino In the past few months Mark Bittman’s shrimp “my way” has become one of my favorite emergency or late-in-the-week meals. This superfast dish is good with a vegetable, on top of rice, or over angel hair pasta. I think... More

If I had to make a lifetime commitment to one dessert, forsaking all others, I would probably choose vanilla ice cream. Maybe we’d spice things up sometimes with caramel sauce or a gingersnap on the side, but my heart would... More

My two main goals as a cook are to squeeze more vegetables into our diet and to master the essential dishes of French bourgeois and American home cooking. My husband’s two main goals as an eater are to convince me... More

©iStockphoto.com/JLGutierrez Sometimes I recall that I grew up without hummus and am amazed. It seems like such a natural kid-food, but it just wasn’t around in Houston then (now it is—my childhood, we’re talking decades ago now, people). I discovered... More

Photograph from blair christensen on Flickr Since I was raised on wonderfully lardy, cheesy Tex-Mex, it took me a while to come around to the ungloppy goodness that is a fish taco. In the early 1990s fish tacos became something... More

Photograph: ©iStockphoto.com/mstroz Since the thought of another pile of paper to manage makes me cringe, I don’t keep a file of recipe clippings for the future. I can’t remember, then, what prompted me to pull this recipe from Mark Bittman’s... More

It isn't summer yet, but the sun has me thinking. Every June when the food magazines put out issues full of gorgeous grilled things, I, a grill-deprived citizen of New York City, feel somehow snubbed. The rest of the country,... More

A few years ago at a family meal my dad randomly launched into a lengthy panegyric to rice. He does this sometimes—proclaims a deep but previously unvoiced passion—and my mother, sister, and I roll our eyes at the poor outnumbered... More

©iStockphoto.com/pink_cotton_candy Yesterday I was glad that Lucy alerted us to the existence of Totally Baked (something has been done to the Dining Section online, and now I am bad about seeing Food Stuff). Recently I was craving a baked potato... More

It isn’t easy to write about recipes week after week and keep your energy level high and your judgment accurate. The accepted wisdom is that readers will stay with you only if you give them a picture and a story,... More

Since I don’t go to church and am not crazy about holidays whose secular celebrations feature chocolate and candy, Easter barely registers on my seasonal radar. If you, on the other hand, have a bunch of pastel hard-boiled eggs around,... More

Enchiladas may not be an essential part of everyone's cooking repertoire, but this recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook is so easy and versatile that I tend to be evangelical about it. Though the results are not authentically... More