Why, hello! Leite's Culinaria is the James Beard Award-winning site that helps home cooks and bakers put dinner on the table and laughs in the kitchen. Hungry for more? Join 40,000 food lovers and subscribe.
How to Pull Off an Epic Thanksgiving Without Losing Your $h!t!
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Hello there Reader, Thanksgiving doesn't have to leave you cursing like a sailor. (Although, if you ever heard Mama Leite muttering in Portuguese while wrestling a 22-pound turkey into submission, you might think otherwise.) As someone who's hosted more holiday dinners than my youthful countenance would suggest―some of which ended with me hiding in the basement, clutching a bottle of wine, and questioning my life choices―I've learned a thing or two about keeping my sanity intact. The One will back me up on this, especially after That One Year We Shall Never Speak Of Again when I nearly burned down the house. But I digress. What I've learned is mastering Thanksgiving is all about strategy. And, unlike how I usually cook―which The One likens to a tornado in an apron―this requires that dreaded word: planning. Allow me to share with you my hard-won five-day plan that'll keep you from ending up in the fetal position behind the washing machine. (Not that I know anything about that.) My Free Foolproof Five-Day Countdown
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Leite's Culinaria
Why, hello! Leite's Culinaria is the James Beard Award-winning site that helps home cooks and bakers put dinner on the table and laughs in the kitchen. Hungry for more? Join 40,000 food lovers and subscribe.
Hi Reader, Some July evenings, turning on the oven is the last thing the kitchen needs. It is too warm, the day was too long, and a 400-degree box running for an hour only makes the room worse.Those are the nights I do not cook so much as assemble.A good no-cook dinner is not a sad dinner. A platter of cold shrimp, a bean salad with real bite, a watermelon-and-feta plate, bread and good butter, and you have fed people properly without raising the temperature of a single room.For the next hot...
Hi Reader, Cherries are the ones I eat standing at the counter, spitting pits into my hand, telling myself I will save some for a tart. I rarely do.Plums and apricots hold longer. They keep for days in the bowl, soften over the better part of a week, and make the best baking of the summer if I get to them in time.This is the short window when all three overlap. Cherries at their dark, sweet peak, plums turning jammy, apricots gone soft and honeyed, all in the market at once.The cherries go...
Hi Reader, I have opinions about fried chicken, and I have had them challenged at more than one family table where everyone else also had opinions.Buttermilk or no buttermilk. Flour or cornmeal. Cast iron or a deep pot. Plain or Nashville-hot enough to make your eyes water.Every version is a slightly different argument about crunch and seasoning and how much heat is too much, and I am happy to make all of them to find out. Rules Before Rankings Brine or buttermilk-soak first, no shortcuts. A...