Last Thursday, at around 5:00, I text Andy: What’s in the CSA bag today? We do a farm share through his office every other Thursday and I always try to plan dinner around it, even though it’s usually a little of a lot, not a lot of a little. 5:01 His reply: One piece of squash, one bunch of broccoli, three spring… Read more »
Old-timer readers will take one look at this photo and recognize that main dish as DALS MVP Spaghetti with Clams and Extras. It’s on page 56 of my first book, Dinner: A Love Story, and has made countless appearances on my summer table and instagram feed. I would be willing to bet almost anything that if you check back with… Read more »
One of the things I love about my “job” as a food writer is that people email me all the time with questions, mistaking me for some kind of expert. Where do you eat when you’re in Nashville? They ask. Or Can you recommend a good food mill? I see you have marble countertops, do you worry about stains? I… Read more »
The drill-down on my cookbook round-up continues as I present to you Vietnamese Tofu Salad, this year’s recipient of Recipe Most Likely to Join the DALS Rotation, and one of the many dishes I’ve made from Ilene Rosen’s Saladish that have slayed, as the kids say. (Do the kids even say that anymore?) As I mentioned in my official review,… Read more »
Since I’m sure you’ve all spent the weekend poring over my summer cookbook rundown in Sunday’s book review, you know that one of the books I was most enthusiastic about this year was Eat a Little Better, by Sam Kass, who cooked for the Obama family when they were in the White House. The book is filled with insider anecdotes and (not surprisingly) the kinds… Read more »
A few Fridays ago, Andy was on the way home from work early, having drawn the short straw to drive Abby to a soccer tournament in Maryland for the weekend, when Abby asked what the dinner plan was. She was packing her soccer bag and stopped to wait for my answer. I paused — I knew what my dinner plan… Read more »
When my first book, Dinner: A Love Story, came out, I will never forget my agent calling me to discuss publishing the book in England. “There’s an agent over there who wants to buy the rights for it,” she told me, “but he’s concerned about all the Trader Joe’s talk and ground turkey recipes.” The Trader Joe’s thing I understood,… Read more »
Last week, a new cookbook landed on my desk called Dinner’s in the Oven: Simple One-Pan Meals. The recipes are unfussy; the design is bright and approachable; it’s shot by David Loftus (one of my favorite photographers) and I loved it almost immediately. I love it for the underlying promise, of course — who doesn’t want to throw a bunch… Read more »
It gives me great pleasure to cede the floor to guest-poster Jenna Helwig today. Jenna is the senior food editor at Parents Magazine and author of Baby-Led Feeding, an inspiring manual for raising good eaters and kickstarting the family meal habit nice and early. Yes, your baby can eat the salmon you’re looking at above. Read on for the recipe and for a fun little… Read more »
This is a quick one and goes out to all my snowed-in Northeastern brethren whose color palette for the past few days has been white, gray, dark gray and darker gray. I developed these Shrimp Tacos with Pineapple for a Bon Appetit dinner column, and they are the rarest of wintry meals: substantive without being stewy; deeply flavorful without being laborious;… Read more »
Don’t be alarmed, everyone’s OK! You’re looking at one small part of the neighborhood wreckage left in the wake of last Friday’s Nor’easter and the reason why we’ve been living out of our suitcases for the past five days. We are doing fine. We shacked up with my sister and my parents’ over the weekend and then checked into a… Read more »
As my dinner diary approaches its 20th birthday (February 22, people, what are you getting me?) I’ve noticed that flipping back through the years to see what was for dinner has become more of an archaeological exercise than a practical one. I love that on Page One, Week One we cooked “Fresh Pasta with Amatriciana Sauce,” a recipe from a cookbook… Read more »
[This post is sponsored by Whole Foods Market] This should not come to a surprise to anyone who has been reading Dinner: A Love Story for the past few years, but when we are looking for ways to celebrate special occasions, whether that’s a birthday, a return from sleep-away camp, the last day of midterms, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Hump… Read more »
9:20 Leave track meet, NYC. (Dream come true: watching both girls run a 4×800 relay, literally one handing the baton to the other) Kids will take bus home after meet is over 9:21 Barely pull onto highway when Andy asks What should we do for dinner? My mind instantly goes to eggs when the kids aren’t home. Breakfast burritos. 9:46 Arrive… Read more »
A few years ago, I got in an argument with an anonymous commenter after posting a recipe that involved pan-fried sweet Italian sausages. The gist of the person’s complaint was that cooking any recipe using sausage was not cooking from scratch, and furthermore, if you are someone who makes a living writing recipes, you are breaking all kinds of rules… Read more »
Last Thursday, I posted the above photo on instagram stories and it almost blew up my phone. Not the actual photo, but the messages people sent in reaction. The one that sums it up the best is perhaps this: Sushi on a weeknight? I can’t decide if I really love you or really hate you right now. I’m writing to make sure… Read more »
As I hand over this genius weeknight recipe, it’s hard not to think of my earliest magazine editor days, when I was expected to constantly pitch story ideas — food and otherwise — to my boss in the dreaded weekly “beat meetings.” I was just starting out and operated under the assumption that anything that was interesting to me was… Read more »
I got a Fitbit for Christmas. Well, technically Phoebe got a Fitbit for Christmas and technically it was Christmas 2016, a full year ago, and she loved it more than anything until she didn’t anymore. It sat in its bright blue box collecting dust since January 22, 2017, which was the “last sync” date that came up when I plugged… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
