At what point do I stop feeling that pit in my stomach, that gnawing sense of dread, when summer ends? Is it me, or was last week officially the longest four-day week in history? Okay, maybe that’s overstating things, but still: I was hurting, in a real back-to-school way, and I’m a grown-ass man. Back behind my desk, staring at the screen. School lunches to be packed. Bills to be
Read more

[Read more →]

I’d like to begin by saying that is by no means a definitive list of everything one should do with one’s kids in Paris, nor is it a comprehensive one. You will not, for example, find any museum here. That’s because a) you don’t need me to tell you about the Louvre or the Musée D’Orsay and b) because the day we decided to spend more of our time wandering in
Read more

[Read more →]

Why is it that if you put anything into slider form, it tastes better. I put a tray of these BLT sliders on the table for lunch at my sister’s beach house and they disappeared fast. Too fast. The person I actually invited for lunch at the beach only got one. BLT Sliders (Like you really need a recipe?) Assemble bacon (the best quality you can find), lettuce, and tomato
Read more

[Read more →]

In the summer of 1996, I was walking west on East 86th Street holding a baguette that I would eat with dinner that night in my studio apartment one block north. I was wearing a black waffle fitted polo with a khaki wraparound skirt and a pair of black pointy-toed Nine West mules, which may have been the most unattractive pair of shoes any female has ever worn in history.
Read more

[Read more →]

I’ve been feeling a little badly about something. I re-read my post about last weekend’s Grilled Lamb Feast and had the thought: I don’t know if I would like me if I didn’t know me. Who calls their own number on a dinner party? If Phoebe read it, she might have called me “braggy.” The truth is, I was thrilled about that meal because for a few weeks there, I
Read more

[Read more →]

I was deep in dreamland on Saturday morning at 6:00 when the dog woke me up with her howling, but still, my first thought was Why am I so happy? And then: Holy s*%t did we rock dinner last night! Does that ever happen to you? When you are so pleased with the food you prepared for someone that the high lasts a solid weekend long? That’s what the past
Read more

[Read more →]

Besides the fact that it’s Friday and that we have a grilled leg of lamb on the menu tonight, what else is making me happy today? 1. Finding a ridiculously easy way to frost the ridiculously easy mud cake I make for every birthday. The one above was for my dad’s 75th — don’t worry, I eventually added the “birthday,” part. (Scroll to bottom for recipe.) 2. Holding a first draft
Read more

[Read more →]

In the very early days of DALS, I wrote a short post about my Aunt Patty, who introduced us to the life-altering pleasures of (a) Marcella Hazan, and (b) Marcella Hazan’s milk-braised pork loin. Patty did a lot of things well in the kitchen, that rare person whose talents matched her ambitions. Porchettas; marinated, butterflied, grilled legs of lamb; real tiramisu with real, espresso-soaked lady fingers and hand-whipped cream; lemon-zested ricotta
Read more

[Read more →]

We usually do our food shopping once a week, on Sunday afternoons, bolting to Trader Joe’s as soon as the final whistle on the final soccer event of the weekend finally blows. It’s our secular pilgrimage. We genuflect at the altar of dried fruits and granola bars, we load up the cart, we drive home, the kids go upstairs to animate some plastic stuff, and Jenny and I begin the
Read more

[Read more →]

I’d like to interrupt the relentless roll-out of pizzas and stews for an important — maybe even obvious — message. A few nights ago I was reading yet another article regurgitating what we probably all know by now about family dinner. This just in: All kinds of great things will happen if you just sit down with your kids to eat dinner. They will bring home straight As, they will
Read more

[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. Grilled Lamb Chops Bring chops to room temperature and sprinkle
Read more

[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, in the interest of starting the year off right, I’d
Read more

[Read more →]

We only have about 48 vacation hours left to squeeze in more body-surfing, spiral-honing, sandcastle-building, cannon-balling, shell-collecting, beach-snoozing (Mom), and bike-riding. But you have the whole month, starting with Labor Day to squeeze in a few DALS dinners you’ve been meaning to try out on the family all summer. Herewith, the best of summer: Barbecued Chicken with Cabbage-Peanut Slaw (pictured below) Sweet Salmon with Campfire Potatoes Rigatoni with Fresh Tomato
Read more

[Read more →]

Sides and Starters Curried Carrots with Butter Rosa’s Lentil Salad Bibb Lettuce with Summer Peas Romano Bean and Tomato Salad with Preserved Lemon Potatoes with Mayo, Chives, and Preserved Lemon Guacamole Steamed Little Necks Cheater’s Naan Fennel and Apple Slaw Sauteed Chard with Horseradish Fava Bean Crostini Twice Baked Potatoes (pictured, center) Grilled Vegetables with Haloumi Roasted Spring Ramps Asparagus with Chopped Egg and Onion Quinoa Salad with Roast Tomatoes
Read more

[Read more →]

For the next installment in DALS’s How I Buy Meat series, we hear from Alexandra Zissu, author of The Conscious Kitchen, and the “Ask an Organic Mom” columnist at TheDailyGreen.com. The goal of the HIBM series is to share exact meat-buying strategies and philosophies from food industry insiders, environmentalists, public health officials, etc. who also happen to be parents. Last time we heard from food-safety expert Doug Powell from KSU’s
Read more

[Read more →]

My aunt Patty was the first great home cook I ever knew. She would get up at 5am, run a few miles, come home, make a big pot of coffee, and start making the gooiest, butteriest challah french toast you’ve ever seen. (At holiday time, she made it with egg nog. And she always added a dash of vanilla, a tradition we’ve continued with our own kids.) She’d clean up
Read more

[Read more →]