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 […]

When a new vegetable first comes in to season, all I want to do with it is prepare it as simply as possible. A little fat, a little seasoning, and let the vegetable speak for itself. The year’s first asparagus? Lightly steam it and toss it with butter and salt. Sweet corn? Shuck, boil and […]

I don’t know if it was the blue skies, all the rain we’ve been getting lately, or all the wine I drank last night, but there was magic in the air at the Farmers’ Market today–vegetable buying magic. The produce on offer was for the most part the same as last week, with a few […]

Living as a student in Cairo, I quickly learned what my cheapest meal options were: kushari, fuul, and best of all, ta’amiya – known elsewhere as falafel. For the equivalent of 5¢, one of these delicious little sandwiches was mine: pita bread (‘aysh baladi) stuffed with fried balls of spiced fava beans, lettuce, cucumber, tomato and […]

Since the bánh mì is the sandwich of the moment–with a New York Times article and plenty of blog coverage–I thought I’d add my voice to the chorus. My relationship with the venerable Vietnamese sandwich started well before I knew its name, when Emeril Lagasse (a man who I am not ashamed to admit inspired […]