Two Favorite Salads

Today, I offer two simple, fresh, and awfully-good salads. The first, a favorite for years, it works well with a variety of meals. The salad is Italian in origin–Sicilian I believe–but it is just as at-home with grilled ribs or a roast chicken, as with menus that are specifically Mediterranean. Case in point, my aunt [...]

The Magnificent Obsession

Frequent readers know all about my obsessions, including this one. The tomato. The glorious, grown-in-the-dirt, ripened-by-the-sun, plump tomatoes of summer. I know I get a little too elated when talking about tomatoes, but I can’t help it. I think of all the possible uses and plan my summer meals around them.
Someone might walk into the [...]

Chocolate Chip Cookies

These were created by my favorite high-school teacher during a lengthy teachers’ strike. She served them to the students who hung out on the picket line rather than attending classes, but she served them to the students who attended classes as well, she was very fair and democratic in her thinking.
Picket-Line Chocolate-Chip Cookies
There is an [...]

I Scream . . .

The recipes that follow were adapted to my own tastes from recipes by Sheila Lukins (author of several excellent books- Workman Publishing). Given that Lukins is one of America’s finest food writers, some people might ask why I felt it necessary to change anything. The answer is quite simple; if I didn’t, they would be [...]

Lucrezia Borgia

This recipe is being printed here by request of Heather who enjoys recipes from the past, and especially those with a story behind them. This one (in my opinion) may be about the best you can ever hope to get. The tart is both visually-appealing and unusual, luscious to eat, and the story you can [...]

Lighten Up

I would have called this one “Salad Days,” or even “Salad Daze,” but both have been used. It is hot, probably hotter where you are than where I am, and none of us want to stand over a stove. But really, there’s no need to, the markets are full of lush summer offerings and when [...]

Hold The Mayo

Last week I mentioned I rarely use mayonnaise these days. Health concerns are an obvious reason but aside from that, in recent years I have just lost my taste for it. Commercial mayonnaise is to my taste, slightly sweet, and more oily than one that is homemade, and I have no intention of making my [...]

Pluot Tart

As dedicated as I am to chocolate, as much as I think cream is one of the most important discoveries in the history of mankind, fruit desserts hold a special place in my heart. When they are prepared by someone who really understands and appreciates the fruit in its own right,  they shine.
The rustic pluot [...]

. . . As Kansas in August

The title refers to corn, of course.
I’m going to start right off by digressing. In my whole life, I have only ever won two contests/competitions. Both were in grammar school, and the first time was in third-grade. We were given an assignment to draw a poster with some sort of an environmental message, like don’t [...]

Adore l’Italia

I received a recipe request for the world-famous Roman dish, Fettuccine Alfredo. The pasta was created around a hundred years ago by Alfredo di Leilo as a present to his wife. I think the story says that she had just given birth, so she certainly deserved something with butter in it. The original dish used [...]