When Jenny and I were in our mid-twenties, we both had jobs in publishing – she at Real Simple, me at Esquire – and worked a few blocks apart, in midtown Manhattan. Sounds pretty glamorous, doesn’t it? It wasn’t, not really. But it was fun. For Jenny, who had spent two decidedly unfulfilling years, post-college, at a financial consulting firm in suburban Connecticut, it was a chance to flex those
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. I am so happy that Nicholas Day is guest-posting for DALS today. For starters, he has written some of my most favorite family food posts over at Food52. (His yes-we-can-have-sweet-potatoes-for-dinner story comes to mind right away.) Next, he’s feeding a four- and one-year-old, and I love to offer a perspective from the toddler-baby trenches whenever I can, since I can only remember that phase on the most intellectual level. (Who are
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So I’m just about there. Tonight I’m hoping to make that shrimp (before I caught my train this morning, I transferred a bag of Trader Joe’s wild blues to the fridge to thaw) and on Saturday we hope to tackle the taco pizza of college memories, but otherwise, I feel pretty good about what has come from the Seven Days, Seven Meals Challenge. As you know, the Orecchiette with Peas and Ham
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So how’s everyone doing with Seven Days Seven Meals? I had to go out last night after work, so I’m starting with Operation New Dinners tonight. Well, if we’re going to be technical about it, I actually started on Sunday when I made a batch of lamb meatballs for the freezer. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me knowing these are waiting for us to devour on Thursday,
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Wow! I don’t even know where to begin. Your response to the Seven Days, Seven Meals challenge (which begins this week!) was awesome. I hope you are all PUMPED for a week of delicious, rut-busting dinners. (Repeat to self when small person protests occur: It’s an adventure, it’s an adventure, it’s an adventure.) The hardest part is over: Committing. From here, follow these five steps. Step 1: Look at your week.
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On a freakishly warm night this past spring, we dragged the family (our ten-year-old, our Samba-wearing eight-year-old, and our vegetable-hating five-year-old nephew) to Boqueria, a tapas restaurant in Soho. The reservation was at the Chuck E. Cheese-ish hour of 6:00 p.m., but the place, thank God, was full–and not with a bunch of other families, either. Our host took us to a high table with high stools on one side
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This picture was taken in Shek O, off the southeastern coast of Hong Kong Island where we’ve been visiting Andy’s brother and family for the past seven days. That’s Phoebe, jumping — after much prodding and negotiation — off the roof of a junk, and plunging into the South China Sea. A good reminder of how big and beautiful this world is, and how full of things to see. We
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I’m going to keep this simple. Because I made it twenty minutes ago, and Jenny and I both said, “Why haven’t we written about this on DALS yet? It’s so easy.” So here it is, a good five-minute sauce that goes with just about anything. It’s awesome with grilled stuff, from fish (we had it last weekend with striped bass) to chicken to steak to lamb chops. It makes veggies
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You may have gathered by now that the only thing we like more than grilling up a big ol’ leg of lamb or writing about grilling that big ol’ leg of lamb is watching our daughters play soccer. I remember when they were young, other parents who had a few years on us, warned once soccer kicks in, you can kiss your weekends goodbye. The sad truth is that even
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Andy and I write a bi-monthly column for Bon Appetit called “The Providers,” and the following story (and recipe for Tony’s steak, above, shot by Marcus Nilsson) is what appeared in the June issue.  By the end of last September, even Abby — my pie-loving 7-year-old — was sick of my apple galette. There was a week-long stretch there where she was having a slice (with ice cream) after dinner, a
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Two weeks ago, Jenny emailed me this iPhone photo of three boxes on our doorstep, with no further message. She didn’t need to tell me: these boxes contained 25 copies of her book, Dinner: A Love Story, the book she had spent an ungodly portion of the last year and a half mapping out, writing, rewriting, testing, retesting, and obsessing over. This emailed photo is as close to overt pride
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  This is how much I worry about you guys — I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that I hadn’t written a single thing this week to help you out with a meal to kick off the best season of the year. We’re guests this year, but any of the dishes here would have certainly been gracing the Memorial Day table if we were in
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 Having People Over Even when we were just-married in Brooklyn, with no idea that one huge bag of spinach shrinks down to two tiny portions (learned that the hard way), we loved having people over for dinner. We’ve figured out a few things since then and have written many posts about entertaining on the blog (and the book) these past few years — specifically entertaining with kids underfoot. Here are
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A What to Eat pad (from KnockKnock) has been sitting in my basement for over a year now, wedged in between a pile of cookbooks and other assorted items marked “Tag Sale.” Of course when I say “marked” I mean not with a Sharpie or a label or anything, but in the back of my own mind; and when I say “Tag Sale” I of course mean “Event that I’ve been
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First time here?   Welcome to Dinner: A Love Story! I’m hoping you’ve landed here because your most trusted friend told you in the elevator at work or on the sideline of a soccer game, “Hey, I found the coolest, most inspiring website!” That is the best-case scenario because DALS is only three years old, and its popularity, at least initially, was built mostly by word of mouth, which, in
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I was at a dinner party with two other couples last year when the host approached me discreetly in the living room. “Can you come here?” she whispered, motioning towards the kitchen. She led me to the oven, pulled out a roasting pan filled with eight split chicken breasts whose skin were all a nice caramel-ly brown. “They’re ready, right?” she asked. I always get nervous with thick chicken breasts,
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There are other benefits to keeping a dinner diary besides the fact that it offers daily meal inspiration as well as tangible, Pilot-Pen-V5 documented evidence of my obsessive-compulsive behavior. And that added benefit is this: It tells a story. It tells the story of how much my cooking has changed from the pre-Michael Pollan days of the 90s (asparagus is constantly showing up in the winter and butternut squash in the spring) and
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We’re not the types who keep the Weber burning all year long — something just doesn’t feel right to me about grilling a leg of lamb while wearing a parka. Which means that this past Saturday night, when the sun was on its way down before the girls’ muddy cleats had been kicked off, may have just marked our final grilled fish dinner of the season. But it was a
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