I have a good friend named Joel. Joel has a father named Jake. (Joel also has a mother, a sister, and two brothers whose names, I swear, all begin with “J”*. But that’s another story for another day.) Jake lives Upstate. I’ve never actually met Jake, though meeting him, at this point, is a mere technicality. And that’s because Jake… Read more »
From the Mail Bag! Reader Robin writes: I don’t know if you get tired of people telling you stories about your site, but I had to share this one with you: I made the Belgian Beef Stew tonight. As I was finishing it up the girls came in to the kitchen and were grumbling things like, “GROSS…I AM NOT GOING… Read more »
I don’t know how to even start an entry like this. This is Liam, 6, who died on Monday. I never met him. I met his mother, the unstoppable Gretchen Holt Witt, when I worked at Real Simple. She worked at Oxo (she still does) and our paths crossed on a bunch of stories there and a few years later… Read more »
One of my biggest pet peeves about a lot of recipes and cookbooks supposedly geared towards families, is the multiple appearances by this sentence: “And your kids will love it, too!” It is usually tacked on to the end of a recipe intro as though the phrase alone will make the scrumptious looking Crab and Kale Cakes (with Rouille!) magically… Read more »
Spoiler alert: If you come over to our house for dinner any time between now and the first day of spring, there’s about a 90% chance we’re going to cook this for you. The pork shoulder ragu you see above is our new obsession. It’s the ideal dish for Sunday dinner, or even better, an informal winter dinner party: It’s… Read more »
But before we get to that news, a little wind-up. About five or six years ago, when Andy and I were still in the toddler trenches — hovering, floor-timing, being awake a full four hours before “starting” our workdays in the office — I asked my coworker Tom, a father of two middle-school aged kids, if I was going to… Read more »
Phoebe proclaimed last Sunday her best day ever. It began with knocking around some tennis balls, segued into an indoor soccer clinic, then ended with lamb chops for dinner. And other than the moment of punch-in-the-gut sticker shock at the butcher (almost $40 for eight double-cut chops!!), Mom would have to agree. This is about as simple as it gets…. Read more »
A few months ago, I got this email from reader Rebecca: “I have no idea what to give to new parents or the bereaved–you know, those occasions in life when a casserole is all but mandatory. I want so badly to show that I care by offering simple nourishment, and all I have in my repertoire are a tired lasagna or straight-out-of-the-1950’s… Read more »
I can’t remember ever making this Official Family Policy, but Jenny and I are completely powerless against a kid — our kid — who asks us to buy her a book instead of check it out at the library. (Full disclosure: We love books and are happy to encourage as much reading as possible in our house, but if we’re… Read more »
How did we celebrate our re-entry into the meat world? With a classic roast chicken dinner. (Oh, and there also might have been a bite or two or five of roasted pork at Roberta’s the other day.) We ate the chicken last night, which was Thursday, which is also known in our house as “Big Fat Nothing Day.” No activities,… Read more »
Have you guys found the recipe for sushi rice on page 165 of the cookbook yet? And have you found the recipe for the salmon teriyaki in the “restaurant replication” section (p. 112)? I have! And that’s what was for dinner last night — a combo of the two: Rice bowl with Salmon, and crumbled on top: those Trader Joe’s… Read more »
I have two fall-back meals that I can always count on when my imagination fails me: There are my tacos (quick shrimp, or shredded pork) and there’s my risotto. Risotto, sadly, has gotten a bad rap because it requires you to hover and be attentive for the entire time you are cooking. (Sound like someone else you know? Who is… Read more »
Careful readers may have picked up in yesterday’s post that we have decided to cut back on meat for at least the first two weeks of January in our house. (I say “at least” because secretly I really want to do it for the whole month, but to the girls, that’s like saying to them that they won’t eat a… Read more »
Dear Andy, In the spirit of the New Year, I, like everyone else, would like to make a few changes in the way I am cooking and eating. I think we are off to a good start — that crunchy Vietnamese salad you made with shrimp on the first day of 2011 rocked! — but before we go any further,… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
