The first time I dared to (knowingly) eat anchovies was in Suzanne Goin’s green goddess dressing, after a few transportingly delicious dishes from Sunday Suppers at Lucques convinced me that she would not lead an open-minded cook or eater astray....
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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©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...
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©iStockphoto.com/MiquelMunill In the past two weeks I’ve twice cooked dinner for a group of six. For the first dinner (friends from high school) I tried new recipes and ended up happy with one and unhappy with the other; the...
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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...
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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.
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©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...
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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...
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