In my next book — which you’ll be hearing about shortly — there’s a whole section on recipes I call “Keep the Spark Alive” dinners. These meals are the opposite of what we make on, say, a Tuesday night, when efficiency and convenience are the most important ingredients. In some ways, they are the opposite of the DALS mission in general. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t every bit as important, especially when we are talking about the psychological health of a family cook. Think of it this way: If Pretzel Chicken and Beef and Broccoli stir-fries are the workhorse recipes, the ones that get me through the week day in and day out, “Spark” meals are the ones that remind me why I love to cook in the first place. They call for ingredients I’ve never used before and usually require a big chunk of luxurious time. Marcella’s Bolognese is a good example of a Spark dinner, so is Andy Ricker’s Pad Thai. And on this dreary New York morning, I’m pleased to announce, I have a new one to add to the list.

It started with Uncle Mike. At our annual Christmas Eve dinner at his house this past year, he served, among a dozen other things, the most amazing Chicken Mole.

The chicken was tender and stewy, the sauce was rich and deep, but not overpowering like some versions I’ve tasted in the past. The kids, skeptical at first, cleaned their plates. It was December, which meant by that point in the winter, I had eaten my fair share of braised short ribs at dinner parties, so part of the novelty of this meal was the fact that I was I dining on a hearty, warm-your-bones chicken-based main. Except for maybe Julia Child’s Coq au Vin, I don’t have a whole lot of those in my repertoire that would earn their keep on a holiday spread.

“How’d you make your mole?” I asked Mike. Only someone who has never made mole would broach the subject so innocently.

He gave a little knowing “Ha” before replying. Mike, an ambitious home cook who grows a dozen varieties of chile peppers in his backyard, and sends us a care package of home-dried Persimmons every November, is not one to shy away from an recipe that might call for pasillos, mulattos, piloncillo, and bolillo.  ”It’s a Diana Kennedy recipe, and it’s been days in the making.”

When I hear the name Diana Kennedy, I mentally turn the page. Diana Kennedy, as I’m sure you know, is one of our country’s foremost authorities on Mexican cooking. Because everyone has told me as much, I have a bunch of her books, and yet, whenever I crack the spine on one, determined this time to conquer at least a simple recipe, I remember: There is no such thing — and as with anything authentic and memorable, there probably shouldn’t be. The recipe Mike used was from Kennedy’s definitive Oaxacan cookbook, but a few days later, he emailed me another, slightly simpler Mole Negro, that looked similar. Mole Negro is one of dozens of versions — it’s the darker kind that incorporates chocolate — and he described it as “traditionally the most difficult.”

I looked at the recipe. Twenty-nine ingredients, half of which would require some scavenger hunting in Mexican markets around the county.  I filed it under “Another recipe, for another kind of cook.”

But damn that mole was good! It stayed with me all winter, and last week, when I was calendarizing (defined as The act of staring at your family’s schedule to see how you can squeeze some real life in between all the activities) I noticed a nice long empty weekend afternoon and evening. It was going to be our last Saturday without soccer until July, no one was coming over, and just by chance, that morning Abby had an orchestra concert a short drive away from a stretch of awesome Mexican grocers.

Mole was calling, and I needed to answer.

I’m going to make this happen, I told myself. But not before first checking How to Cook Everything to see what Bittman had to say. Naturally, the former “Minimalist” columnist acknowledged the complexity of the dish, but offered up a turkey mole that he said was easy and accessible enough to cook on a weeknight. That sentence is like DALS kryptonite, and it took everything in my power to press on. This was not a weeknight. This was not about accessibility. This was about injecting a little bit of adventure into the pasta-and-pizza loop. In search of something in between Bittman and Kennedy, I asked my friend Dana if she had a good mole to recommend. She emailed me Pollo en Mole Poblano, saying said she’d never made it, but had eaten it — and loved it –at many dinner parties. I was sold.

I’m so glad I stuck with the plan. Because it gave the family an excuse to explore a Mexican market we’d never been to before (Locals: this photo was taken in La Placita in Port Chester, but there are many others along Main Street) to track down some hard-to-find spices and chiles…

…and I had a few moments where I could play bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble. What amazed me was not how many ingredients I got to toss into the pot, but how little of each ingredient was actually called for….

…and there was that Zen moment after toasting, steeping, de-stemming, seeding, and pureeing my three varieties of chiles. The color! So pretty, right?…

…And then a few not-so-Zen moments. (I always forget about that dang “maximum fill-line.”)

…At this point Phoebe yelled from the other room “Are you making doughnuts?” Nope. I was just sauteeing plantains with cinnamon, almonds, sesame seeds, and about seven million other spices. That boded well for the evening. Though Abby decided she wanted to drizzle the mole on a chicken taco (fine by me), Phoebe ate it the way it was supposed to be eaten, as shown way up top. Best of all, there was this:

Leftovers for the Freezer! Which means I’ll be serving up something pretty damn tasty on a weeknight very soon. Or maybe I’ll just save it for my next fancy dinner.

Mole Negro

Head over to Saveur for the recipe I used, but a few notes first: It was ever so slightly too sweet — I’d cut back on the sugar (to 2 teaspoons) and the chocolate (1 ounce). Also, it can get thick and pasty, so don’t be afraid to thin it out at various times with water. Lastly, it’s crazy flavorful so you probably only have to serve about half as much as shown in the photo way up top. {PS: We ended up serving it with the Mexican rice shown in the Saveur photo. And finished it off with Andy’s Tres Leches cake for dessert. Yes and Yes.}

 Print

Do you ever wonder what your dinner guests say about you when they walk out your door? Do they marvel at your hosting abilities and wonder when they’ll get invited back? Do they praise the food but slag the company? Do they praise the company but slag the food? Do they judge your glassware? Do they climb into their car, sit for a second in the darkness, and say, Never again? That depends on what kind of entertainer you are. Take this quiz to find out… — Jenny and Andy

Your friends are coming over for dinner and you’ve made a (pretty tasting looking, if you don’t say so yourself) frittata with feta cheese, leeks, and baby asparagus. When your the guests arrive, the husband tells you he doesn’t eat feta. He’s not allergic, he just has a “thing” about it. In response, you:

a) Apologize profusely and, in a show of solidarity, toss the frittata into the garbage and start over using some good cheddar.
b) Wag your finger and say, “I guess Mr. Picky over here won’t be getting any dessert tonight!”
c) Roll your eyes, sigh audibly, and say, “Oh god, let me guess: you’re an only child?”
d) Say, “No problem! Which would you prefer: Honey Nut Cheerios or Peanut Butter and Jelly?”
e) Say: “No problem. I’ll just make you an omelet.” Think: “You are so incredibly dead to me.”

It’s 6:45 and your guests are due to arrive in 15 minutes. You hop on your computer to make a playlist, which consists of:

a) Whatever they play between those segments on that NPR show.
b) “Losing My Religion,” and the exact same thirty-seven songs you put on the mixed tape you made for your girlfriend in college.
c)  Haim, Haim, and more Haim.
d) Whatever comes up when you type “cool dinner party playlists” into the Google machine.
e) I don’t have time to make a playlist – isn’t there a Bland White Guy Pandora station on here somewhere?

You would describe your approach to menu planning as:

a) Buy fresh ingredients, and prepare them simply.
b) Three words: Short Ribs, bros!
c) Ramen. Or whatever rapo4 is hashtagging on his instagram feed.
d) Food’s not as important as the company — and besides, have you tried Trader Joes pot pies? They’re actually pretty good.
e) If it can be grilled, then I shall grill it.

Your default conversation starter when the silence borders on awkward is:

a) Okay. Edward Snowden: good guy or bad guy?
b) So, how’s your kitchen renovation going? Wolf or Viking?
c) What year is your Passat?
d) Who’s watching House of Cards?
e) What’s it all about? Life, I mean.

Your guests are raving about the braised pork, a recipe your friend Cindy made for you a few weeks ago. You: [Read more →]

 Print

There was a time, when the girls were two and three, that we dreamed of the day when they’d be 10 and 11, able to sit at the table and place food in their own mouths while filling us in on their days. Now that we’re finally here—avert your eyes, new parents—we realize that our dream was a mirage, that life finds a way of constantly moving the goalposts on you. Family dinner is still chaotic, only the challenges have shifted from the physical to the logistical. And March and April, for us—with the girls deeply entrenched in two spring sports—is the most chaotic time of year. As we’ve detailed more than once on this blog, practices don’t end until 7:30, which means that, most nights, dinner doesn’t happen until the (very European) hour of 8:30. When you’re dealing with an overstuffed activities schedule, it’s crucial to have a few strategies that make a solid dinner possible. Here are three we will be relying on all season long:

Strategy 1: The Before-Work Play
When the cook is on carpool duty—i.e., it’s not just the athlete coming home late—the key is to prepare something in that 15-minute window before you head to work in the morning. We love soba noodle salad with a simple rice vinegar dressing and greens—spinach, kale, chard—tossed right into the pasta water in the last minute of cooking. Refrigerate till you get home, toss on the dressing, and, if you have time, add some shredded chicken for the win.

Strategy 2: The Pan-Fried Pizza Move
By the time our li’l midfielders stagger through the door, they’re like a couple of feral dogs: They don’t even bother to take off their shin guards before inhaling whatever is put in front of them. A piece of fish on a night like this? Ain’t. Gonna. Cut. It. Individual pan-fried pizzas with whole wheat crust? That’s more like it. Just brown your rolled-out dough in a cast-iron pan with some olive oil, flip, add sauce and toppings, then finish under the broiler. Abby likes a classic Margherita; Phoebe goes for ham and pineapple. (Book owners: Please see page 281 for the official recipe.)

Strategy 3: The Freezer Plan
When there’s so little time on the clock, it’s tempting to fall back on takeout or frozen pot pies. But we’d rather walk through the door, reach into our freezer, and pull out something homemade—like a batch of bake-ahead turkey and spinach meatballs. Think of it as the utility man of the family dinner: ever reliable, can play both protein and vegetable, goes on a bun (meatball subs!) or over pasta, and will crush its store-bought competition any night of the week. Pro tip: Freeze them in single-serving batches, so you can thaw and deploy as needed. Victory.

This is our “Providers” column for the March 2014 issue of Bon Appetit. Head over to their site for the spinach-and-turkey meatball recipe. Photo by Matt Duckor (meatballs) for Bon Appetit.

 Print

About a decade ago, when the girls were 6 months and almost 2, I showed up to the lobby of my office building just as I had every morning for five years and started rooting around my bag for the I.D. that would grant me access through the turnstiles. It was probably about 9:30, which meant I had likely been up four hours, and the caffeine hit from the single cup of coffee I allowed myself (breastfeeding, pumping, etc.) had long worn off. I seemed to find everything else in that bag — wallet, yellow-capped Medela bottles, Disney figurines — but not my I.D.  Watching everyone else glide through to the elevator bank was too much for my sleep-deprived state — so I stood there and wept. Surely this was the worst thing that could ever happen to any human. Where the hell was my I.D.? Why couldn’t it be right where it always was? What was wrong with me?

Had I read Jennifer Senior’s new book All Joy and No Fun I would’ve probably had the same outsized reaction, but I’m guessing I would’ve been a little more forgiving of myself. Because among the many things I learned in her meticulously reported book on the complex state of modern parenthood (based on her widely discussed 2010 New York magazine cover story), I learned that there wasn’t much I could do about my reaction — it turns out that the way we handle sleep deprivation is a fixed trait, with most of us fitting into one of three major groups: “Those who handle it fairly well, those of us who sort of fall apart, and those who respond catastrophically.”

This tidbit seems small and almost obvious, but as with most things, to understand the science, to read the hard research on why our houses have become messier than any time in history; why a three-year-old is biologically incapable of responding to logic; why I loved — craved — going to work when my kids were little (when I remembered my I.D.); why moments of unbridled parental euphoria are so hard to capture in the day-to-day life with kids…to drill down deep on all this stuff is both instructive and comforting. Especially when the reporting is interspersed with personal stories from parents across the country. All in all, I’d say that reading Senior’s book felt like one big exercise in what the medical folks might call normalizing.

All Joy is also a fascinating chronicle of the many paradoxes of modern parenthood including, but not limited to:

• What’s great about America (your kids can grow up to be anything! There is no script) is also what’s so terrifying (there is no script!)
• We’ve never been in greater contact with each other — digitally — and yet, compared to our parents’ generation where neighbors were in and out of our houses, and kids were playing kickball in the cul-de-sac, we’ve never been so alone, so on our own.
• The more stuff children have, the more useless they become.
• The very same empowering skills parents encourage in their children (particularly in middle class families) lead those children to challenge and reject parental authority.
• Since after World War II — at which point the child’s status started shifting from “useful” to “protected,” — children have become “our crowning achievements,” and yet they have never been less equipped to live their own lives.

The most interesting paradox for me, though, was the fact that All Joy is really much more of an anthropological look at parenting than it is a parenting guide — Senior says this right away in her introduction — and is fundamentally based on the fact that raising happy children is harder and more elusive than it has been for any previous generation. And yet I came away the opposite of scared. Did I recognize myself in the story about the woman from Texas signing her kids up for tutors and football and softball without really knowing what the end game was? Yes. Did I freak a little when I read how a Brooklyn mom described her role in her teenage daughter’s life as “the pit crew?” (“I change all her tires, polish up the car, and get out of the way…then she peels out.”) Did the entire section on adolescence and its corresponding downward spiral effect on parental happiness scare the daylights out of me? Well, yes. But, oddly, when I closed the book, the more overwhelming feeling I experienced was that we were all in this together, struggling with the same (mostly unanswerable) questions — and even having a rough guide to the territory makes me feel just a little more mentally equipped to take the trip.

We’ll see how I feel about this theory in a few years.

Related: Jennifer Senior on Fresh Air. Also: a few cool giveaways coming up on facebook and instagram this month, so make sure you’re checking in.

 Print

Two Thursdays ago, my friend Sonya emailed me:

Hey! You guys around this weekend? We have the urge to make a big pot of stew and drink wine with someone.  Please say yes!!!

I could not have replied fast enough. Yes! Yes! Yes! Is tomorrow too soon? Or how about now? Can I come over right now? It was another single-digit temperature week up here in New York and most of my day was spent holed up in my (old, drafty) house, dressed like Shaun White, and listening to 1010 WINS for any breaking news on the next storm rolling in.

I know what you’re thinking right now — another winter whinefest from Jenny, right? Right about now, the entire population Minnesota is rolling their eyes at me.

Not so fast. Believe it or not, today I’d like to focus on the upshot to the cold weather snap in New York (though it seems to have tapered off for the time being) namely the dinner invitations coming in left and right from people like Sonya — people who want to make a big pot of stew and drink wine. With us!

I’ll tell you something else about these people: They know their way around a kitchen. To determine this, one need look no further than the cast iron pans and Dutch Ovens sitting atop their stoves. Each one seemed to boast the kind of patina that you just can’t fake, as though it has been handed down by the cook’s great-grandmother. Inside the pot? These days, there’s a 99% chance it’s some kind of stewy beef. Not just something like our back-pocket Belgian Beef Stew that we are used to scaring up in under an hour on a weeknight. I’m talking meat that has spent some quality time in the oven, braising and reducing to deep concentrated deliciousness, making the house smell like the only place you want to be. Check these out…

Braisy Beefy Stewy Dinners Fit for Cold-Weather Entertaining

Carbonnade of Beef with Prunes served with big fat noodles, simple roast carrots, crusty bread. Perfect. Cooked for us by Sonya and Pierre.

Beef Bourguignon (above, photo credit: Food Network) at Todd and Anne’s house. Should also be noted that they served the kids homemade mac and cheese, too, which ended up being decimated by the grown-ups.

Braised Short Ribs with Dijon at our friends Reagan and Scott’s house. The beef literally melted off the bones.

Moroccan Beef Stew (shown way up top, photo by Brian Leatart for Bon Appetit) made with golden raisins and served with couscous by our neighbors Rebecca and David, who have two kids under two. (A better person might have felt more guilty about this. Like maybe I should’ve been the one cooking for them?)

Thai Beef Stew with Lemongrass and Noodles OK fine, no one has actually made this for us yet, but how good does that look? Currently accepting invitations….

Stay warm!

 Print

Jenny called me at work a couple of weeks ago, on one of those gray afternoons when the temperature never rises much above 10 degrees and the dog refuses to go outside.

“I’m freezing,” she said. “How do I turn up the heat?”

“In the house, you mean?”

We’d lived in this house for ten years. This was not our first winter there.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Okay, do you see that box on the wall? The one in the living room, near the fireplace? It has digital numbers on it. That’s the thermostat.”

“I see it,” she said. “Now what?”

I’ll spare you the rest, but let me ask: Does this seem weird to you?

I could tell you how weird it seemed to me, too — how do you not know where the thermostat is?! – but I’d be lying. The truth is, it wasn’t that weird at all. I have to believe that most families have these random-seeming divisions of labor which, if you really step back and look at them — or write about them publicly on a blog — do seem pretty weird. Our house, and our marriage, is full of them. It’s practically built on them. Some of this is probably evolutionary (we have only so much bandwith, so we pool resources to survive, etc.), and some of it is probably just being happy to let someone else deal. Here are some other things that Jenny never does in our house: Replace light bulbs, pay bills, sweep the kitchen floor, cut the kids’ toenails, change the filters on our air conditioner, realize that our air conditioner has filters (and that they need changing), clean the tank of Abby’s beta fish. And here are some things I never do: Braid hair, iron anything, realize that anything needs ironing, organize closets, manage our calendar, feed the dog, sort the recycling on Wednesday mornings, hang up coats that get piled on the chair next to our front door, turn on the dreaded Sonos system.

This ad-hoc division of labor applies to our lives in the kitchen, as well. There are certain things we just close our eyes and rely on the other person to execute. (Q: And what if that other person isn’t around to execute it? A: We buy it.) For me, the idea of making, baking, and frosting a cake: unh-uh. Same goes for latkes — and for deep frying, in general. Have never done it, don’t know how to do it, don’t intend to learn. Jenny, on the other hand? She doesn’t make coffee. “Can you make some of your coffee?” she ask me on Sunday morning, as though “my coffee” is some rare, magical potion and not a matter of pouring some hot water over ground beans. How strange does all this get? Consider this: Jenny’s favorite breakfast of all time is a bowl of steel-cut McCann’s oatmeal with a little cream and fruit, AND SHE HAS NEVER MADE IT IN HER LIFE. Or, she tried once and wasn’t happy with the result and gave up forever, ceding all future oatmeal duties to me. Oatmeal is not hard to make. There is no real art to it. I am pretty sure she could (a) figure it out in about five seconds, if she tried, and (b) become a thousand times better at it than I am. But that’s not how it works, when it comes to the division of labor. Oatmeal is my thing. Mud cake is her thing. And as long as we stay in our lanes, we keep moving forward. – Andy

Andy’s Oatmeal Instructions
The only downside of steel-cut, real deal oatmeal is that it takes a while. If you’re trying to get it on the table on a Tuesday morning, as the kids are packing their backpacks and the dog needs to go out and orchestra practice starts in 25 minutes, this will not make you happy. On a Saturday morning, however, with the kids watching some SpongeBob and a cup of good coffee in your hand, and a rare “nothing day” stretching out in front of you: Yes. This humble little grain will do you right. Note: As much as I love oatmeal, I also believe that it’s all about the toppings. There must always be fruit — strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, bananas — or, if you’re in a pinch, dried cherries or cranberries work well, too. There must always be something sweet, as well, and here are my go-tos, in descending order of favoriteness: Maple cream, maple sugar, high-test maple syrup, dark brown sugar, agave. Jenny likes a few chopped almonds or pecans. Some people like a sprinkle of cinnamon. I am not one of those people.

1 cup steel cut McCann’s Irish oatmeal
3 cups water, plus another cup in reserve
1 pinch salt

In a medium saucepan, add 3 cups of water and a pinch of salt. When water is boiling, add 1 cup of oatmeal and stir. Reduce heat to the lowest simmer and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally and scraping along the sides of the pot with a rubber spatula, for 25-30 minutes. If it looks like the oatmeal is getting too thick, add a little more water and stir. I like it to be almost like porridge: thick but not too thick. Top with a drizzle of milk or cream, and the toppings of your choice.

Related: You Make it, You Own it.

 Print

My sister called me the other morning. We were both in our cars — bluetoothing and dropping off our various charges — and figuring out a possible cousin sleepover when she said, with some urgency, “Oh! Did you get my message?”

“No, what message.”

“I left you a voice-mail with a lot of questions, but I really want to tell you about the chicken.”

“What chicken?”

“My friend Trish had a bunch of moms over for lunch recently, and she served the most delicious chicken.”

Now this was unusual. I get a lot of post-game calls about recipes, but not many of them are about poultry.

“Tell me about it,” I told her, negotiating a huge snow bank so I could park the car in front of my coffee shop.

“Well, it was served on a large platter, kind of like one that you would have, and it was room-temperature, but she served it with tiny potatoes and green beans on top of lettuce, a ton of fresh vegetables, and a vinaigrette on the side.”

Deconstructed lunch! I thought to myself.

“Someone said, ‘Oh it’s a deconstructed lunch!’ She also had some salmon, but the chicken was the star. It was so healthy and flavorful, not bland like most chicken in salad is, and it was all ready to go when we got there because she made it ahead of time.”

Maybe it was just that the night before I had a ginormous bowl of Pappardelle with Pork Ragu, and the night before that, a hearty Moroccan beef stew…or maybe it was just that we were steeling ourselves for another snowstorm that would come with more buttery, stewy richness, but when she was describing this to me I was longing for a sign of spring, even if it was in dinner-form. And man, did something light surrounded by fresh vegetables sound like the ideal antidote to this relentless winter.

“How’d she make it?”

“She marinated some breasts overnight in mayo, a little olive oil, mustard, salt, pepper, garlic, and a little agave. Some fresh herbs I think. Then she grilled it.”

“On a real charcoal grill outside or in a grill pan on the stove?”

“Outside.”

Wow! Who was this Trish woman? We’re not winter grillers, especially these days, when our Weber looks like this:

But I still had to make it. The next day was a school-day, which is another way of saying a snow day, and it was clear that no work was going to get done no matter how many Sam & Cat episodes I bribed the girls with. But that chicken would get done so help me! Before I was even out of my pajamas, there were four pounded breasts steeping in a some version of Trish’s marinade. And later that night I broke out my cast iron stovetop grill. No charcoal, no charcoal chimney, no char anywhere to be found. And I obviously served it hot instead of chilled or at room temperature like Trish did. And I went with the winter vegetables I had in my fridge. But the whole process managed to thaw a few dreams of spring nonetheless.

And the chicken! I understand why it merited a next-day call from my sister. (The true mark of a successful dish in my book.) Tender, flavorful, and the leftovers were even better the next day.

Trish’s Marinated Chicken
2 tablespoons mayo
1/4 cup olive oil
squeeze of agave (or honey)
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
salt & pepper
2 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
squeeze of lemon
fresh rosemary, thyme or torn basil leaves
Four medium size chicken breasts, pounded thin

In a medium bowl, whisk together all ingredients and, along with chicken, add to a ziploc. Marinade eight hours or overnight, flipping in the fridge at some point if you can. When you are ready to cook, heat a stovetop grill to medium-high, and brush with a tiny bit of olive oil. Grill chicken pieces about four minutes a side (let excess marinade drip off before you place on grill) or until chicken is firm but not rock hard. Serve with Kale-Brussel hash below.

Kale-Brussels Hash

Add a small piece of smoky bacon to a skillet set over medium heat. Once fat has rendered, add a little olive oil and cook a few tablespoons of onions or shallots (chopped) until soft. Add salt and pepper, maybe a few red pepper flakes if you are so inclined, then a few healthy handfuls of shredded kale and shaved brussels sprouts. Cook until just barely wilted (and still bright green) and add to a serving bowl. Drizzle with a little cider vinegar (or red wine vinegar) to taste. You can chop the bacon into small pieces if you feel like it, or just eat the chunk yourself before the kids fight over it.

 I have one of those cast iron reversible grill pans that stretches across two burners. The flip side is a griddle, but I never use it.

Related: I Want to Marry Marinating.

 Print

So I got this nice note from a reader the other day:

I have to tell you I did my first real deconstructed meal the other night where I was not catering to the kids. It was so easy, such an epiphany! My husband and I made Chicken Tikka Masala with browned cauliflower and frozen peas in it. Before adding the (jarred) sauce, I loaded up plates with juicy sauteed chicken chunks and browned cauliflower and added some grapes and they Gobbled. It. Up. I had hot dogs at the ready but was feeling very sad about it. So this was amazing!! Thank you! — Jennie T.

Chicken Tikka Masala! That is some brave new territory, and it made me think that we’ve covered the DALS Top 10 Quick Meals, Top 10 Side Dishes, Top 10 Ways to Use a Rotisserie Chicken, and even Abby’s Top 10 Reads last summer — so I think it’s high time we rounded up our favorite Deconstructed Dinners for the family table. Break it down now:

1. Tortilla Soup (Which also has a nice definition of Deconstructed Dinner for those of you completely in the dark here)

2. Chinese Chicken and Broccoli (like Jennie T., just save a few of the unsauced chicken chunks for kids who might object to the hoisin)

3. Chili-Rubbed Chicken with Mexican Salad, shown above (related: Burrito Bowl)

4.  Steakhouse Steak Salad with (or without!) Horseradish Dressing

5. Fish in Parchment Paper (Part 1 and Part 2) to be filed under “Oldie but Goodie.”

6. Orrechiette with Sausage and Broccoli (the classic)

7. Kale Cobb Salad (hold the Easter egg dye)

8. Chicken Orzo Soup, shown above, page 290 Dinner: A Love Story  (When Abby was a soup-o-thrope, I used to pluck the tender shredded chicken from this and lightly pat it with a paper towel before serving it to her with lightly dried carrots and a mound of orzo. What can I say? I really wanted her to like my favorite soup.)

9. Spicy Peanut Noodles (it’s just “plain pasta with a side of crispy snow peas” to the kids if you serve the peanut sauce on the side), page 261 Dinner: A Love Story

10. Quinoa with Spinach, Egg, & Sriracha (No matter how much I deconstruct and disguise this, my kids will not touch, but you might have better luck.)

Don’t see your favorite? What is it?

 Print

Hey, look at what book showed up on Food 52′s Provisions in time for Valentine’s Day! (Be warned: Once you click over there, you will be swallowed up in the beautiful things vortex.)

The battery-operated twirling spaghetti fork: So ridiculous. So endlessly entertaining.

It’s been too long, Chicken Kiev! This week, we reunite.

When elite parents dominate volunteering, it’s the children who lose.

Phoebe wrote a new post on her reading blog, Nerd Alert, about the book that sealed a really cool friendship. I think it might be her best post yet. {“Mom! You always say that.”}

Speaking of reading, the James Baldwin quote half-way through this Op-Ed says it all.

A fun way to enlist your kids in the lunch-packing grind.

These chocolate chip cookies look divine (as does the new blog where they live).

Always go to the funeral.

Remember my neighbor who left her job as a high-power corporate attorney to open a gluten-free bakery? She just opened up her second By the Way Bakery on Broadway between 90th and 91st. New Yorkers, please stop by!

Marinara Worth Mastering. Which just reminds me that sometimes the simpler the recipe, the more detail-oriented you need to be.

A Mommy Blogger’s Lament

Oh my goodness, Catherine, those chicken wings! Totally, 100% happening for Super Bowl Sunday.

Know anyone? Dinner: A Love Story is hiring!

Have a good weekend.
Jenny

Photos by James Ransom for Food52. 

 Print

It’s been well documented on this site that whatever limited talent I have for say, spinning a lone onion into dinner, that this talent has somehow never translated to the baking side of my brain. The most recent evidence to support this being that cornbread I baked for our friends John and Shiv over the holidays — the one that was going to be served alongside Andy’s chili, until I tasted it and realized that I had forgotten the cornmeal. The sad thing is, it doesn’t mean I don’t like baking. I actually love it. I’m just no good at it.

But anyway, there was this cake I used to make Phoebe when she was little. Her birthday is right around Valentine’s Day so her parties were always heart-themed. For this particular birthday — held at a local dance studio — I planned the entire thing from my office at Real Simple, where I was working full-time. I booked the space, organized the pizza delivery, ordered various pink and red heart-shaped off-gassing plastic junk from the Evil but Life-Saving Oriental Trading. We liked to have birthday parties at home (or maybe I should say, we liked having parties at home after they were over) but it had been a crazy month. I was transitioning into a new role at the magazine, Andy was starting a new job, and Abby seemed to be sick the entire winter. It seemed absurd to take on a home party when outsourcing it at the local gym was going to save precious sanity reserves.

But I wanted something to be homemade — See: Birthday Parties and Maternal Self-Worth: Case Study 1 and Case Study 2 – and all that was left for me to do was the cake. I had it in my head that I would do something really fabulous — maybe in the shape of a shark or something because that was one thing about four-year-0ld Nemo-loving Phoebe…she knew her Sand Tigers from her Black Tips. But of course, it was the day before and I didn’t have any idea how to make a shark cake or anything fun for that matter. Or, at least fun in a way that was doable, given my limited chops. If I had thought ahead and bought a heart mold, I could just do a heart cake, I thought. But I hadn’t thought ahead and so instead found myself at the office googling “heart cake.” What came up was a sketch that looked a lot like this:

It turns out, if you have a standard 9-inch square baking pan (I did!) and a standard 9-inch circle baking pan (I had that, too!), you can very easily make a cake in the shape of a heart. You just slice the round one in half, and affix each of those halves to two adjacent sides of the square cake. Easy! Even for beginners. After baking (I used Rosa’s Mud Cake, naturally, but you can use your own favorite recipe) and frosting everything, Phoebe decided she wanted to stud the rim with pink and red M&Ms…so who was I to stop her? And nine years later, even though I’ve had plenty of time to order that mold, I still consider my jerry-rigged method the only way to make a real heart cake.

P.S. Speaking of hearts and birthdays — today Dinner: A ♥ Story turns 700 posts old!

 Print

OK so how’s this for awesome: Applegate, maker of high-quality natural and organic meats is offering Dinner: A Love Story readers an exclusive giveaway. And it’s not just because they got wind of the fact that my 10-year-old sausage lover and my 11-year-old roast turkey sandwich addict have, I’m pretty sure, kept them in business for the past decade. Turns out they’ve been doing a little family dinner research that you guys might not find too surprising — 89% of parents they surveyed felt it was important to share a meal together, but nearly half of those same parents cited lack of time, inspiration, and picky eating as major snags. Hence: their Take Back Meal Time mission, and hence a full-on Pizza Making Kit giveaway that dovetails nicely with my mission, aka There is No Dinner Dilemma That Can’t Be Solved By Pizza. The pizza kit includes Appletgate Mini Turkey Pepperoni, Applegate Provolone Cheese, a jar of Jersey-fresh tomato sauce, King Arthur Flour Pizza Crust Mix, a wood-handled pizza cutter, an illustrated pizza tea towel, and a sweet little recipe and information booklet that tells you all you need to know. Not bad, right? One commenter will be chosen at random and must live in the US. Contest ends on Tuesday, January 28 at 8pm ET. Good luck!

Toppings: tomatoes, red onions, peppers, mushrooms, black olives, basil, artichokes and turkey pepperoni.

 I am totally feeling the turkey pepperoni.

Update: The winner is Anne (#386). Thank you to everyone who participated!

 Print

1. Please?
2. Try holding your nose.
3. See how the fish is pink? Princesses love pink. Salmon is what princesses eat! It’s princess food! Yay princesses!!!
4. If you don’t eat this, I will take the dog for a walk and never come home.
5. You know how sometimes a needle is so sharp you don’t even feel it? That’s what this chili is like. It’s so spicy that you won’t even taste anything.
6. Try the swordfish. It’s like white salmon.
7. Try the cauliflower. It’s like white broccoli.
8. Try the tofu. It’s like white-ish chicken.
9. Try eating. It’s how you survive.
10. I went through full labor and then had a C-section in order to bring you into this world. I almost died for you. You owe me.
11. If you don’t eat it, then I will. And then I’ll hate myself.
12. Don’t you love Daddy?
13. Let me ask you one question: Why must you torment me so?
14. It’s lemon sole!!! Isn’t that a fun name? Sole is a fish. You like fish, don’t you? Don’t you love salmon? Well, salmon is also a fish! Sole is like salmon’s cousin, in that they both swim in the ocean. They swim around and are cute. It’s really good. It’s even better than salmon! You like fish. You’ll love this. I promise. Just think of it as salmon. Or, okay, chicken. It tastes a little like chicken, too. Oh come on, you love chicken. This is breaded and fried, just like the chicken we make. It’s like that, but even better. Think of it as chicken and salmon mixed together, and you love both of those things, right? Don’t you? You don’t?
15. Pretty please?
16. If you don’t try this, Santa won’t come.
17. The doctor said you need to eat this.
18. There’s no more ketchup. Heinz stopped making ketchup last week. It was in all the newspapers. A newspaper is something you read.
19. Don’t eat?  No treat.
20. Let’s think about this logically for a minute, okay?
21. One bite one bite one bite one bite one bite one bite one bite one bite.
22. Remember the Mac and Cheese you loved at that restaurant in Charleston? This is the exact same recipe, from that restaurant’s cookbook, written by the exact same chef who made it for you then. And now I’m taking his exact instructions and recreating the exact same meal for you right here at your table in New York. How cool is that??
23. How do you know you won’t like it if you’ve never tried it? And yeah, I just said that.
24. If you try this, we’ll talk about getting you that Polly Pocket Cruise Ship Set that will sit on our living room floor like a hideous speed bump for the next five years until I throw it away one day when you’re not looking.
25. Let’s play a game: Pretend your life depended on finishing this.
26. Quick! Look over there!
27. Do you enjoy this? Is that why you do this?
28. You like watching your mother cry? Is that it?
29. Your sister finished hers.
30. You think Tony Stark leaves any kale on his plate?
31. You liked it yesterday!?
32. You liked it when Aunt Lynn made it for you.
33. Your little chicken is lonely and sad and will only be happy when he’s reunited with his potato friends in your stomach.
34. Man cannot survive on pasta alone.
35. What do you think tomato sauce is made out of?
36. Don’t you want to live for a long time?
37. Don’t you want to outlive your parents?
38. Do you want the dog to get fat? Because she should not be eating this much hamburger meat every night.
39. I’m counting to three.
40. I mean five.
41. I mean ten.
42. I loved this meal when I was a kid.
43. I hated this meal when I was a kid.
44. Don’t look at it, just eat it.

 Print

For a lot of people, the phrase “Apres Ski” conjures a certain image — a group of  ruddy-faced J. Crew models wearing Uggs and sipping red wine around a rough-hewn coffee table; a cold beer soothing burning muscles in front of a roaring fire; and (for Phoebe) reading a comic book under a blanket in her pajamas. For me, it means one thing: Skiing is over. I survived another day and — knock on wood — didn’t hurt myself.

It’s not that I don’t like skiing. When all the stars align — rental gear fits right, slopes aren’t too icy, there’s feeling in all twenty fingers and toes — I totally get the exhilaration thing. But the problem is, I learned in my thirties, the decade I had kids, the decade when my mantra became “Why have fun when I can be safe instead?” This past weekend, we rented a house in the Adirondacks with our friends Todd and Anne (book owners might remember them), whose mantra, I’m guessing, would probably be the reverse. I was so grateful that my kids could look to them (and Andy) as examples of grace and confidence on the slopes, instead of to their mother, who, upon completing her first run, had to kick off her boot and fall sideways into the snow because her foot fell asleep. True story.

I was also grateful that when we returned home to the rental, there was bourbon. Which we sipped as Todd fired up the oven and baked two pizzas for the eight of us — four adults and four kids, one who doesn’t eat beef, one who doesn’t eat pork, one who likes his pizza as straightforward as possible. The first pizza was a tomato-and-mozzarella, the second, a riff on Jim Lahey’s Potato-and-Leek (from the amazing My Pizza), which was just about as good a family-friendly apres-ski meal as you can find out there. Maybe it was the bourbon talking, but the meal — eaten at a long table with wind-chapped kids — was enough to erase whatever anxiety I had on the slopes that day, and get me pumped up to do it all again the next.

Potato and Leek Pizza
The other reason why this works is because, unlike a lot of wintery comfort food dishes, it doesn’t require a whole day of braising or planning. It can be on the table within an hour or two of returning from the mountain.
Recipe only very slightly adapted from Jim Lahey’s My Pizza [Read more →]

 Print

Last Thursday night I called Andy from the parking lot of a school. It was 7:45 PM.  I was waiting for my 10-year-old to get out of soccer practice, held in the school’s gym. It was frigid. I was starving.

“What’s for dinner?”

I heard Keith Richards’ guitar in the background and some ice clinking in what I rightly guessed was a Manhattan.

“Some chicken with lemon, wine…” Clink, clink. “…Capers. Goin’ old School.” Clink. “Barley salad. Slaw.”

He was alone in the house cooking. Our 11-year-old wasn’t coming home until 8:15.

“I am so f-ing starving.”

What I love: That my daughters play sports. That they play soccer. That they have great coaches and great teammates. That I can watch them get stronger, better, faster almost before my eyes. That they play year-round. That they play year-round in freezing-cold bubbled domes, and public-school no-frills gyms and, unlike their mother, it doesn’t occur to them to complain. Ever.

What I don’t love: That practice times are creeping later and later. That, in fact, the other night we reached a milestone in our house: The dinner table had been cleared, the tomato-sauce-smeared plates loaded into the dishwasher, the dog walked, the lights (mostly) turned off while we headed upstairs to read in bed — and Phoebe was still not home from soccer practice. She was dropped off at 9:40 by the sainted parent of a teammate. Her dinner, a bowl of pea soup with crusty bread, had been consumed at 6:30, before practice, which started at 7:30 across the county.

I am not complaining. Nor will I tolerate a single person who tells me that we are idiots for getting ourselves into this predicament. I firmly believe that what my kids are learning being part of a team is every bit as valuable as what they are learning at our dinner table. And I firmly reserve the right to change my mind when it starts happening more than once a week. (Hello lacrosse season!)

So like every dinner obstacle before this one, we are adjusting. But if I was competing against extracurriculars for victory over weeknight dinnertime, the score right now would be Dinner: 4, Activities: 1. In my book — in any book — that’s a Win.

Plus, Andy got an hour to cook dinner while savoring a drink, without feeling like the game clock was ticking the whole time. And we all got to come home to Old School Chicken.

Old School Chicken with Lemon and Capers

4 medium chicken breasts, pounded, salted and peppered
few glugs of olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup chicken broth
1-2 pats butter
juice from 1 lemon
handful capers

Brown chicken in olive oil in a large skillet set over medium-high heat. Remove chicken, add a little more olive oil to the pan and turn down heat to medium-low. And add onions and cook until slightly softened.  Add wine, broth, and lemon juice to the pan, and then chicken. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cover until chicken is cooked through and liquid is slightly thicker. Swirl in butter, add capers and serve.

Andy served with barley salad that had been tossed with arugula, grape tomatoes, feta, and vinaigrette.

 Print

“Okay, I think we have a plan,” my friend Jeff said. “Why don’t you and Jenny come over on Friday at six, we’ll have a quick drink at our house, and then head out to dinner. Sound good?”

Given that Jeff and his wife, Kirsten, live in Washington, DC, which is only 20 miles from my parents’ house, and given that we’d been trying in vain to set up a dinner together for two years now, yeah, this plan sounded good. It sounded perfect.

Except Jenny and I got stuck in traffic and showed up half an hour late. And then, it was a beautiful spring night, so we sat out on the stoop at dusk and drank some wine, and that one drink turned into a couple of drinks, and Kirsten was newly pregnant with their second kid, so we heard all about the pregnancy and their plans for moving into a bigger place, and before we knew it, our quick drink had turned into a bottle of wine.* Jeff looked at his watch.

“We’d better go,” he said. “None of these places take reservations and it’s kind of late, so we might be screwed.”

We were screwed.

By the time we’d walked over to 14th Street, that much was clear. We checked a tapas place: hour to an hour and a half wait, crowd spilling into the street, no chorizo for you. We checked an extremely fun-looking oyster bar: yeah right, was basically the message. We checked another place that was so full, they suggested we put our names on the list and go to the bar next door, where they’d come find us when they had a table. We went to that bar, only to realize we were too old (and pregnant) to be hanging out in bars. Were we going to have to stand up the whole time? My back was killing me. And boy, was it dark in there! And was the music ever loud. Did the speakers have to be so big? Jeez. Isn’t that bad for your hearing? I had a sudden flash of how my dad must have felt when I dragged him to my first concert – Judas Priest, Capital Center, 1984 – and he spent the whole time, wedged between a group of biker dudes with long yellow beards, inhaling enormous clouds of second-hand weed smoke and leaning forward every few minutes to shout, ARE YOUR EARS RINGING, TOO and DO YOU THINK WE NEED TO STAY FOR THE WHOLE THING?

We lasted about five minutes. Back on the street, we huddled up to think. I felt bad for Jeff. The pressure was on. “I know,” he said. “There’s a place a few blocks down that Kirsten and I went to for our anniversary,” and when we got there, we poked our heads in and yes, thank god, we were in luck: they had a table! It was a perfectly nice restaurant, but it was also the kind of place with starched white tablecloths and those Reidel glasses that can hold like two bottles of wine, entrees that start at $30 and a kind of hushed, West Elm, serioso vibe. The maitre d grabbed four menus and started to lead us to our table.

“Do we want to do this,” Jeff said, verbalizing what we were all secretly thinking, “or do we wanna just go back to the house and cook in? We can make some pasta and drink wine and hang out.”

The man was speaking our language. “Let’s go home,” we all said.

And so we did. We walked home, cut the babysitter loose, and cranked up some music. As always, we all ended up in the little kitchen, watching as Jeff made his moves behind the stove, and their two-year-old, Billie, slept soundly upstairs. He grabbed some Pecorino and bacon and eggs and whipped up a Carbonara – he’d experimented with many artery-wrecking versions over the years, but the one he made that night, and the one he liked best, was one he found on youtube and had adapted to his specifications. Instead of straight Pecorino, he did half Pecorino and half Parm. Instead of pancetta, he went with cubes of good bacon. Instead of three eggs, he used four – and we showed him how to temper the eggs before adding, which made the whole oh-God-will-they-scramble-or-will-they-not part of the meal much less stressful. Instead of dropping 250 bucks on dinner, we had something that was every bit as good for about ten bucks. It was also a hell of a lot more fun. – Andy

* Chardonnay, actually. Jeff did this to f*ck with me. He thinks it’s hilarious that I enjoy a good glass of chardonnay. He can’t get over it. Like the guy is a Navy SEAL or something. Like he owns power tools. Plus, I don’t like Chardonnay. I like French Chardonnay. Which is even worse.

Restaurant Worthy Carbonara
As simple as this recipe is, it can go to the scrambled-eggs place fast if you’re not careful. As far as we can tell, there are two important steps to take to avoid this. First, the pasta water. Adding a little of it to the eggs is called tempering, and it helps get the eggs used to the idea of heat slowly rather than all at once (which usually results in scrambling). The other crucial step is to remove the pan from the heat completely before adding the eggs. We set the skillet down on a cutting board before adding them. (Some cooks like to do the egg-tossing in the pasta’s serving dish.) If you are cooking this for guests for the first time, we recommend a dry run so you’re not in panic mode. On the other hand, even if the eggs do scramble, it will still taste delicious.

1 pound spaghetti
salt
1 clove garlic, minced
2-3 thick slices pancetta or bacon, chopped into lardons, or cubes
4 eggs
3/4 cup Pecornio, shredded, plus more for serving
freshly ground pepper

Prepare spaghetti according to package directions — don’t forget to salt the water. While spaghetti cooks, fry pancetta in a large deep-sided skillet set over medium heat until crisp. Lower heat and add garlic towards the last minute of bacon-crisping. While everything is crisping, whisk your eggs in a medium bowl.

Drain pasta, reserving about a half cup of pasta water. Add spaghetti to the skillet while it’s still a little wet and, using tongs, toss with garlic and bacon fat, adding a drizzle of pasta water to keep it loose, and to prevent spaghetti from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Remove pan from heat completely. (We set the skillet down on a cutting board on the counter.)

Vigorously whisk in about a tablespoon or two of hot pasta water to your eggs — this is the tempering. Add eggs to the pasta slowly, tossing until pasta looks silky and coated, but not drippy and wet. Toss in cheese. Serve immediately with more cheese and freshly ground pepper.

 Print

Is there anything more annoying than spending time and money on a recipe that falls short, or doesn’t brown right, or takes hours instead of minutes, or doesn’t look anywhere close to the freaking picture? Never again! Herewith eight questions to ask before you decide to make a new recipe for the family.

Is there a recipe buried within your recipe? If a recipe calls for an ingredient that in and of itself requires its own recipe on another page in the book — back away from the cookbook. This drives me crazy. It’s a technique commonly found in restaurant cookbooks — not to be confused with restaurant chef’s cook-at-home cookbooks — where they think nothing of calling for blood orange vinaigrette “(see page 220)” and homemade veal stock “(see page 130)” in the same ingredient list. The only time this is acceptable is if sufficient warning has been given in the recipe note or if there is a substitution option that doesn’t make you feel like some kind of failure for not having homemade parsley pesto on hand.

Did a robot write it or did a real person? Do you know what a recipe headnote is? It’s the industry term for the little introduction that precedes your recipe. You know, the kind that says “I love this dish. It’s a great thing to make ahead for entertaining, because it just tastes better on Day 2.” Now that? That’s a good headnote. It’s helpful, it’s specific. You get the feeling that the recipe writer has done it before and knows what she’s talking about. (That very instruction is in the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, preceding her Balsamic-and Beer-Braised Short Rib.) But how about this one: “So delicious that everyone in your family will be begging for seconds.” Barf. Is this a cookbook or is it fiction? The person who wrote that is either a) Siri or b) someone who has never cooked for a kid who, this week, has decided to eat mashed potatoes and nothing but mashed potatoes.

Does it have a cutesy name? Like “Last-Minute Lasagna” or “Quickie Quesadillas?” These kinds of recipes might be perfectly fine, but I find it just too embarrassing to answer “Curry in a Hurry” when a family member asks me what’s for dinner. I don’t have any more scientific explanation than that. (Exception: Lazy Bolognese on page 98 of my book. Why an exception? Because I am a complete hypocrite.)

Does the timing seem right? Somewhere along the line — I’m tawlkin’ to you Rachael Ray — 30 minutes became the barometer for the hallowed “quick and easy meal.” As a result, it seems that everyone wants to deliver recipes that come in under the half-hour wire. And if they don’t? Eh? Let’s just say it anyway! This seems to happen all the time. How to avoid: Read the recipe all the way through — if the writer tells you that a soup which involves chopping a half dozen chopped vegetables takes five minutes prep time, you should think twice about trusting that recipe writer. (And if it happens again, I give you full on permission to un-follow him or her on instagram.)

Is the ingredient list longer than the recipe? That’s not a good sign. Save for the weekend, or when your kids are older — or hand to your butler and private chef to arrange themselves.

Are there too few ingredients? This sounds like a strange question to ask. Is there such a thing as a recipe that’s too easy? Not that often — but when a recipe calls for only two or three ingredients, you should probably make sure each one of those ingredients is pulling its weight if it’s going to turn out well. The other night I found myself explaining how to make polenta to my friend Naria. It’s so easy, you just whisk cornmeal into chicken broth and add some fat at the end like cheese. It’s a three-ingredient side dish (one that is excellent with those short ribs I might add) and it’s perfectly serviceable if you make it with cornmeal, chicken broth, and cheese. But if you take care to use homemade stock, authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano, and cornmeal from your local Italian market, it’s going to be more than serviceable, it’s going to be memorable, which means that most likely it will make it onto your table again. And that’s the mark of a success here.

Is the recipe handwritten? It’s gonna work.

Is the recipe handwritten by a family member? Recipe Gold. No further screening required.

PS: Recipe cards shown in photo are from Andy’s grandmother’s collection, courtesy of our Uncle Doug & Uncle Earl.

 Print

I just did a run-down of last year’s New Year’s Resolutions and — shocker — I barely batted 200. Still don’t drink enough water, still eat too many “incidental” French Fries off the girls’ plates, haven’t gotten any better at forcing myself to call friends instead of text them, never read The Hobbit, which was going to earn me big fun Mom points with Phoebe, which at the time was her favorite book. (I did, however, manage to see the movie — part 2 — last week, so I might just have to put that in the W column.)

It seems that the only thing I manage to accomplish every year, without even resolving to do it, is finding new healthy, one-size-fits-all recipes for the dinner rotation. In 2013, there was the ever-popular Burrito Bowl. There was the Indonesian Chicken Salad. (Which has the added bonus of being just luxurious enough for entertaining.) There was that Mongolian Tofu Stir-fry that falls into the category of Kids Won’t Touch, But I Don’t Care, It’s Just Too Good to Banish.

So the question is: Where should my 2014 Healthy Family Dinner experimenting begin? I’ve been eyeballing that Slow-Roasted Salmon with Citrus, Fennel, and Chiles in the current issue of Bon App, and I’ve been flipping (and flipping) through my go-to Feel Virtuous cookbooks shown above, but I want you guys to weigh in. I mean, it’s January after all and I know I’m not the only one attempting to lighten things up for a little while. So what’s on the menu for your family this month? What’s your favorite go-to easy family dinner that you know will be loved in the DALS house (and in the DALS community)? What’s America’s Next Top Family Dinner? Please swap thoughts in the comment field below and then…let’s all get cooking.

And since it’s not fair to just ask for your help without returning the favor, I thought I’d just share this week’s menu plan with you. I haven’t been in the habit of writing out the week in my Dinner Diary for a while, but for some reason, I’m anticipating post-vacation re-entry to be harder than usual this year (thanks to single-digit temps up here in the Northeast) and simply making a dinner road map for the week already makes me feel a little more in control. Which, of course, is all one big farce.

Anyway, the line-up: [Read more →]

 Print

New Yorkers: Is one of this year’s resolutions “Cook More for Family?” I can help with that. Please come to a talk I’m giving this Tuesday, January 7 (12:00) at Asphalt Green in Battery Park City. It’s called Eight Steps to Better Family Dinners, and I’ll be discussing strategies, recipes, kitchen tricks and all that fun stuff I wrote about it my book, but really it’s just an excuse to meet you all.  Hope to see you there.

 Print