Happy Grilling Season Everybody! Quick Public Service Announcement to those book owners out there looking for some good Memorial Day menu ideas. We were lucky enough to be invited to a cookout on Monday, but if I was grilling, I’d feel good about any one of these line-ups. (Your key: DALS = Dinner: A Love Story; HTCE = How to Celebrate Everything; DPB =… Read more »
This is a very exciting day for me. Not only do I get to tell you about Curtis Sittenfeld’s brand new short story collection — You Think It, I’ll Say It, my favorite of all the books she’s written — it is the day that the real life Curtis Sittenfeld makes a cameo on Dinner: A Love Story. Yes, that’s right…. Read more »
What we’re eating and reading this week: Dinner Party in a Box! (Above) My favorite meal-delivery service, Martha & Marley Spoon is now offering a three-course “fiesta box” to feed four ($78) or eight ($148). Just like their regular dinner kits, these take the front-end stress out of the equation by sending you all your fresh pre-measured ingredients and simple, clear instructions…. Read more »
I am so pleased to introduce today’s guest-poster, friend and novelist Sonya Terjanian, author of, most recently, The Runaways. Her book follows the dovetailing stories of a teenage girl and a middle-age mother of two, both of whom find themselves at crossroads and decide to indulge their instincts to escape unfulfilled everyday lives. Most of the action (often harrowing, page-turning action)… Read more »
My friend Fred has the funniest ritual. When asked to bring dessert to a dinner party (or any party), he heads to Carvel to pick up an ice cream cake. That on its own is revelatory for me because, well, show me someone who doesn’t appreciate a chocolate-vanilla-crunchies-in-the-middle Carvel cake and I will show you an unhappy person. But the… Read more »
I know! This post is a long time coming! First, allow me to be the millionth person to tell you that Charleston, South Carolina is now one of the biggest restaurant destinations in America. As most of you know by now, we are New Yorkers who spend a week or two a year on Kiawah Island, about 25 miles outside… 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 »
Hard to believe, but my Dinner Diary (pictured here) turns 20 years old next month (that includes Volume 2) and to celebrate, I’ll be picking some favorite pages and recipes from the year I started — which is 19-freaking-98 if you’re doing the math. If you have any MVPs from the DALS archive, please let me know. (Even better, tag… Read more »
Season’s greetings everyone! I’m pleased to present to you the DALS 2017 gift guide, which, per tradition, tries to keep your family’s eating and reading pleasures in mind. This year, to shake things up a bit, I added a “pairs well with…” element to many in the mix, as a way to personalize or accessorize. Happy giving. Parlor Instant Coffee… Read more »
A few weekends ago, Andy and I took a 55-minute flight from New York to Montreal to celebrate our 20th anniversary. I had never been, and we were only going for 48 hours, so we had some crucial decisions to make, especially as those decisions related to eating and drinking. There is only so much one can consume over the… Read more »
. Every year around this time, Andy will turn to me and say something like “I think it’s time to shake things up a little at Thanksgiving.” Mmmm hmmm, I’ll respond, and if I wore glasses, I’d raise my eyeballs over the frames for a sec before turning back to doing what I was doing, which is, most likely reviewing… Read more »
I made these hasselbacks for Sunday dinner with the most beautiful little sweet potatoes I picked up at the market on Saturday. They were misshapen, small, pale peach colored, not even in the same family as the bloated, cloying sugar bombs you get at the supermarket. “Do you know about hasselbacks?” I asked Andy when I pulled them out of… Read more »
After Phoebe wrapped up her final exams last month, she told me she was eager to embark upon plans to “aggressively chill.” ‘”What does that mean?” I asked. “Sleep in. Read in the hammock. Maybe fall asleep in the hammock. Walk Iris. Float in the pool.” It sounded so nice. She had a whole two-and-a-half days to pack in all… Read more »
I’m pleased to announce that, as of Monday, my annual cookbook round-up for the Times Book Review is live and ready for your reading pleasure. As you know, I always love this assignment, not only because I get to pore over beautiful books all spring, but because it really forces me to cook outside my comfort zone, to seek out new… Read more »
So what’s everyone making for their Memorial Day barbecues? We are splitting up this weekend to travel to various sporting events and tournaments and I’m guessing that my culinary highlight will be the egg and cheese sandwich at whatever Starbucks is closest to the track or field. (Reminder that I am not complaining. I love those sandwiches and would, in… Read more »
That’s what Andy said when he tried a bite of the inaugural Chocolate Chess Pie we baked on Friday: Maybe the best pie ever. Before I get into the details, let me just remind the readership at large here that Andy loves nothing more than a superlative. (<- Which is itself, of course, a superlative.) About the tomato sandwich he eats during… Read more »
On vacation in South Carolina last week – one for the books I might add – the girls and I were riding our bikes over a bridge, the golden marsh stretching out for miles on both sides of us, Abby turned to me and said “What if for dinner tonight we turned pizza into a salad?” “You mean salad pizza?”… Read more »
My father’s mother, Grandma Tillie, didn’t attend my parents’ wedding. She was Jewish, raised in an Orthodox household by parents who had been born in a Romanian shtetl—and her oldest son marrying a Presbyterian from western Pennsylvania had not exactly been her idea of kosher. Naturally, her wedding-day protest weighed heavily on my father, but once my parents tied the… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
