The most striking feature of Wood Lake Nature Center in Richfield is the wetland that sits at its center. Even in winter – if you want to call this winter – when the pond is iced over and almost everything is dead, it brings a certain thrill of being an explorer or a pirate to […]
To paraphrase Sara Bareilles, I’m not gonna write you a ratatouille recipe. (I promise that will be the last Sara Bareilles reference – ever – on this blog.) I’ve done it before, and with farmers markets overflowing with more zucchini and eggplant than a blogger knows what to do with, you can be sure you’ll […]
3 comments | Cabbage, Eggplant, French, Green Pepper, Leeks, Seasonal, summer, Thyme, Tomatoes
I buy zucchini blossoms exactly once per year, and not because I want to. Sure, they look pretty, and I love the concept of fried zucchini blossoms – crisp and airy, redolent of fields of flowers – but I’ve never been able to deliver on that idea. Instead of light and crunchy my fiori come […]
5 comments | beer battered, Deep Fried, fiori di zucca fritti, Italian, summer, Zucchini, zucchini blossoms
It all started with an acute lack of pickles. As in, I had not a jar of pickles to my name, not even in the deepest back recesses of the middle shelf of the refrigerator. But golf-ball sized potatoes from yesterday’s Midtown Farmers Market were demanding to be made into potato salad and if there’s […]
6 comments | Cilantro, Cucumber, Midtown Farmers Market, Pickles, Potato, salad, summer
I make as much an effort as anyone to feign enthusiasm for ramps, but the real excitement of spring and the produce it brings doesn’t begin for me until I see the first spears of asparagus at the farmers market. Asparagus is a bellwether crop, like the late summer tomato, that signals the arrival of […]
8 comments | Asparagus, Braising, Broiling, Green, Midtown Farmers Market, Simple, Spring, Steaming
As I was wracking my brain trying to come up with a Saint Patrick’s day post for this blog that wasn’t corned beef and cabbage – because I had to post something, right? – I kept coming back to bangers and mash. I’ve never been to the Emerald Isle, and while like many Americans I […]
4 comments | Bangers, Britain, Cumberland, Cumbria, Ireland, Mash, Mashed Potatoes, Pork, Potatoes, Saint Patrick's Day, Sausage
Some days, everything goes right: the sun is shining, you can ride your bike around town carefree after a winter full of slow ice-patch vigilance, you’ve just eaten a fine lunch and there’s nothing in particular to do that afternoon. You roll into your favorite butcher shop – just to say hello – and suddenly […]
No comments | Blood Sausage, chickpeas, Clancey's, Madrid, Spanish
Tilapia has a lot to recommend it: it’s cheap, grows fast, can be sustainably farmed, and is low in mercury. Probably the only thing not to love about tilapia is its flavor. Not that it’s actively offensive, just that even in terms of white-fleshed fish tilapia is pretty bland. That blandness can be remedied with […]
3 comments | Fish, Herbs, Laos, Laotian, Larb, Lime, salad, South Asia, Tilapia
As a relative newbie in the world of cocktails, I find them totally mysterious. How is it that pouring apparently random amounts of ingredients that are often quite challenging to drink on their own transform in the shaker into a magical elixir? When I am cooking, at least, I have some confidence in my ability […]
No comments | Alcohol, Aperol, Citrus, Cocktails, Esquire, Lime, Southern Comfort, Tequila
It’s safe to say that unless I hit the internet blogging jackpot and finally get to cash in on marthaandtom.com, I’m never going to own the recently-published Modernist Cuisine. $600 for a cookbook is just a little beyond this blogger’s budget. It’s a shame, because everything I’ve seen about the book (eGullet has some of […]
3 comments | Lemon, Meyer Lemon, Modernist Cuisine, Pasta, Ravioli, Xanthan Gum