Hi Reader, I'll admit something. I don't think I've ever eaten a taco sitting down.Oh, I've intended to. I've set the table, put out napkins, arranged bowls of salsa and lime wedges like I'm hosting a cooking show. But then I assemble that first taco, take a bite to make sure everything tastes right, and suddenly I'm standing over the kitchen counter, juice running down my wrist, wondering where half my dinner went.Sound familiar?There's something wonderfully uncivilized about taco night. You...
4 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, By the end of October, I’ve surrendered.The sweaters are out. The heat is on. There are more blankets on the bed than anyone would call reasonable. (I would.) And after weeks of admiring autumn’s changing leaves and waxing poetic about crisp air, I’m ready for the real reason I tolerate cold weather:Gravy.Give me chicken pot pie with its crust cracking beneath a spoon. Meatloaf in a bacon overcoat. Shepherd’s pie is buried under a thick drift of Cheddar potatoes. Chicken and...
6 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I can cook an entire dinner and remain reasonably civilized. Put bread dough in front of me, and I become a five-year-old.I poke it.I prod it.I lift the towel to see if it’s risen, then return twelve minutes later because perhaps something dramatic has happened. Every book I own says to leave it alone.Clearly, the books don’t understand the responsibilities of bread ownership.But this time of year, I want flour on the counter and the oven warming the kitchen. I want rosemary and...
9 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, One of the great pleasures of being a food writer is getting invited into other people’s kitchens.Not literally, necessarily. Although I’ve happily done plenty of that, too. I mean discovering how another cook, another family, another country takes the same basic proposition (meat, vegetables, liquid, heat) and turns it into something unmistakably theirs.Stew may be the best example.The One can always tell when I’ve gone down one of these rabbit holes because the spice cabinet is...
11 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I have a complicated relationship with Halloween candy.I bought it early because I’m organized. Then I eat it because it’s there. Then I buy more because, apparently, I’m running a confectionery Ponzi scheme.The One has learned not to ask why the Halloween candy keeps changing. Reese’s has become Snickers. Snickers become Kit Kats. Kit Kats became some enormous mixed bag, I swear, was “all they had.” By October 31, I’ve personally conducted enough quality control to assure the...
13 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, The One and I have an unspoken agreement about baked mac and cheese and gratins.That’s a lie. I’ve spoken about it. Often.The crispy edges are mine.You can have the creamy middle. Help yourself to those tender potatoes swimming in cream, the macaroni under its blanket of cheese, the sweet squash or cauliflower tucked underneath. Lovely. Enjoy.I’m after the perimeter.You know the part I mean. That two-inch strip where cheese has bubbled against the baking dish until it turns bronze...
16 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, I love the moment a piece of chicken hits a hot skillet more than is strictly reasonable.That ssssssssss.It’s the sound of Monday dinner getting its act together.The One knows that when he hears it from the other room, dinner isn’t far off. I know that if I can resist fiddling with the chicken (turning it, nudging it, lifting one corner to “just check”), I’ll be rewarded with skin so crisp it practically shatters.The resisting is the hard part.But a skillet dinner is one of those...
18 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, The One likes an agenda on Saturday mornings. I like a project.There’s a difference.An agenda involves errands, tidying, perhaps something involving the gutters. A project involves me announcing at breakfast that I’m going to make pastrami. Or bacon. Or smoke a pork shoulder for so many hours it becomes less a recipe and more a domestic relationship.This is my idea of a Saturday well spent.Smoking and curing force me to do something I’m spectacularly bad at: wait. You season, cure,...
20 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, There are dinners that encourage impeccable table manners.Shellfish is not one of them.Put a steaming bowl of mussels or clams in front of me and within minutes I’m using an empty shell as tweezers, broth is running down my wrist, and The One is quietly sliding another napkin in my direction. I know what I look like. I simply don’t care.The broth is what you came for, isn’t it?The mussels or clams open and spill all that briny liquor to whatever you’ve got burbling beneath them:...
23 days ago • 3 min read
