It’s a good week when there’s a Maya Kaimal simmer sauce in the refrigerator — it means that one family dinner in the next five nights is going to be a complete no-brainer. I’ve tried lots of these prepared sauces over the years (my kids have always liked, or in the case of my youngest, tolerated curry) but Kaimal’s taste fresher and… Read more »
When I worked at Cookie, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by moms who (collectively) knew the answers to everything. Really everything! From Should I send my late-birthday kid to kindergarten or not? to What should I wear to a summer afternoon wedding? to Is Coraline too scary for my six-year-old? But the real bonus was that two of them,… Read more »
TJoes, as it is known in my house, is not so much a grocery store as it is a cult. Everyone I know who patronizes it for their weekly shop has incredibly strong, incredibly diverse ideas of what to buy and what to skip. Last week, sitting in my friend Todd’s kitchen, he read the short list of ingredients on… Read more »
You know what drives me crazy? The way the conversation about Family Dinner can insidiously slip in the Family Values direction. The scaremongery tone of all those studies telling parents that our kids are headed down paths of drugs and destruction if we don’t eat together, does nothing to help the cause. (And sounds remarkably similar to Rick Santorum… Read more »
In some ways I feel like I could tell my life’s story through the breaded chicken cutlet. It started with my mother: Mom could make a chicken cutlet. Crispy, golden, never overcooked. When I was growing up, she’d serve them with sautéed garlicky zucchini wedges. I’d slap the cold leftovers on a baguette with a slather of mayo. No one… Read more »
My position on letting the kids help with dinner is this: No. For me it’s one of those things that fall under the Sounds-Fun-But-Actually-Sucks category of kids activities. (Others on the list: parades, ice skating, any kind of music class that mom has to be present at.) That does not mean I’m categorically against my kids cooking with me. In… Read more »
.People ask me all the time if I’m interested in having a third kid. The answer (for now, at least) is: Why would I when a cake mixer has two beaters to lick and a chicken has two drumsticks to serve? (Shouldn’t I take it as some sort of sign that the girls are both crazy about the legs while… Read more »
I bought this chalkboard decal from wallcandyarts.com and stuck it up in my kitchen because I just thought it was so pretty, but now, two years later, I’m not sure anyone in my house can live without it. At first I used it as a way to remind my babysitter of playdates and activities, but now it’s more like my… Read more »
It’s hard to even count how many different shapes and sizes Rosa’s Mud Cake has taken over the past three decades. That’s it up there, in a heart shape underneath frosting and an army of m&ms for Phoebe’s Valentine-themed birthday party a few years back. It was also the cake I used for Phoebe’s birthday “beach cake” and the dessert… Read more »
I thought this was pretty clever. My 3-year-old nephew is a fan of pasta but not so much of anything healthy that may accompany that pasta. So my brother gets him to eat chicken and other proteins by stuffing it inside his rigatoni, out of sight.
(illustration by Laurie Sandell) Rule 1: If you have a kid under 3, don’t bother. Tending to a toddler at the table — his milk spilling, his food dropping, his inability to articulate how multidimensional your marinara is — it all takes its toll on the rest of the diners’s satisfaction, especially the cook’s. You won’t be able to concentrate… Read more »
…the other spouse will throw all dinner rules out the window. At least, that’s the experience in my house. For whatever reason, when my husband is on the road, our sacred mealtime routine doesn’t seem so sacred anymore. While my kids get take-out or a Trader Joe’s pizza from the freezer, I will get all Prousty with a mammoth bowl… Read more »
I never knew my grandmother (she died when my mom was 14), but my mother’s beautiful nieces (and fellow soulmates-in-cooking), Kay and Maryanne were nice enough to send me a bunch of Grandma Catrino’s recipes a few years back including the biscotti one above. This story alone would have been enough for the recipe to earn a time-honored place in… Read more »
Last fall, after probably the 10th person in as many weeks asked me if I’d tried Jim Lahey’s no-knead homemade bread yet, I finally decided to give it a go. I had never made my own bread before — in my mind bakers were as different a species from cooks as chemists were — which was probably why I had… Read more »
These alphabet cookie cutters from Fox Run Craftsmen (an awesome baking resource) were as fun a rainy-day activity as you’d think they’d be. Though Abby got slightly impatient with the methodical work of it and soon resorted to the classic gingerbread mold, my 7-year-old went to sleep dreaming of all the possibilities. We used a favorite sugar-cookie-dough mix from Martha Stewart’s… Read more »
For a good part of my life, my mother made dinner using her three-quart mustard yellow Dansk enamelware frying pan. To her, no other cookware could compare. It browned meat beautifully, it was responsive to heating and cooling, it moved from stove top to oven easily. Even when its signature wooden handle fell off in the mid-80s and she couldn’t… Read more »
When we bought our house in 2003, the kitchen was terrible (think avocado counters, not of the charming retro variety), This was exciting to me for one reason: In a few years, when we could maybe afford to renovate, we could create the perfect family kitchen from scratch. Of course, as anyone who has lived through a renovation… Read more »
I am so jealous of parents who have kids with warm-weather birthdays. My girls were born in late fall and early winter which basically precludes any attempt at an easy breezy outdoor party (aka: One of those let-them-run-around-then-serve-cake-then-say-goodbye parties). So for Phoebe’s 8th this year, we all decided to ignore the weather and have a summer party anyway — inside… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
