“We’re looking at a pretty dire situation here,” I texted Andy. It was about 5:30 on a Thursday and one of his coworkers was coming for dinner an hour and a half later. The situation in question was the dinner itself. Ever since reading about Diana Kennedy’s famous Carnitas in Genius Recipes, I’d been meaning to try out the recipe,… Read more »
A million years ago, when I showed up at the fancy department store with a clipboard to register for our wedding, I very religiously recorded SKU numbers for all the shiny cooking gear before me, dreaming of the day in the not-so-distant future that these items would replace our dusty old cooking gear. Nowadays, I put a premium on that… Read more »
Sometimes I’m excited to post here because I have a great recipe to write about. Sometimes I’m excited because I have a great character to introduce you to. On the best days, like today, I have both. Technically, my friend Victoria Granof is a food stylist — someone who makes the meatballs or the soup look appetizing for the camera — but… Read more »
If you are a human being with human friends, chances are you frequently find yourself in the kitchen, scratching your head saying things like “I wish there was something I could do.” When we’re lucky, this can mean a new baby — What can I do to help you get some rest? But when we’re not so lucky, it means… Read more »
This week I did an “instagram takeover” for @LalaLunchbox — a really cool meal-planning app for kids and parents that I highly advise checking out — and had a few revelations about the process, none of which, amazingly, involve the state of my mental health. 1) Phoebe, my 13-year-old, is content to have a turkey and cheddar sandwich with mustard… Read more »
I know we’re all in end-of-summer mode, but for a minute I need to take you back to an early June day, specifically Father’s Day, which up here in the Northeast was a stunner of a Sunday. Clear skies, low 70s, light breeze. Andy was out running errands when the girls and I took stock of the gift loot —… Read more »
I am so pleased to hand over the mic to Katie Workman today. You might say the two of us are sisters in dinner — we met in 2013 at The Family Dinner Conference (yes, it exists), she’s blogged for years, and has two books out on the subject, the latest of which might be my favorite. It’s called Dinner:… Read more »
Scrolling through our vacation photos was like the visual equivalent of watching Bubba’s famous Forrest Gump monologue: Barbecue Shrimp. Creole Shrimp. Popcorn Shrimp. Pineapple Shrimp. Coconut Shrimp. Lemon Shrimp. Pepper Shrimp. Wow, we ate a lot of shrimp! This, of course, made perfect sense in South Carolina — where we spent the last leg of our trip, and where we usually feel like… Read more »
Who: The Usual Suspects, Andy, Jenny, Phoebe, Abby What: Family Dinner When: A Saturday night in early summer Where: DALS headquarters, Suburban New York Temp: High 80s, high humidity Obstacles/Activities/Extracurriculars: N/A, see: SUMMER 10:00 AM Walk to Farmer’s Market, procure Tuscan kale, baby cabbage, and a pound of Mahi Mahi from the fish guy. (And a dozen cider doughnuts, half of… Read more »
Over pork shoulder tacos one night, we told our daughters that we had an announcement to make. “Jeez, that sounds scary,” said Phoebe, as she held a massively overstuffed tortilla in front of her face. Little did she know. “Next week, we are going vegetarian,” we informed them. “Now: you guys are either with us or against us, and since… Read more »
As our kids head into their last week of school, teacher thank-you notes in tow, it got us thinking: What about our teachers in the kitchen? What about all the little voices that instruct us as we whip our cream, brown our chops… and overcook our dry-aged ribeyes? I’m not only talking about the Marcellas and the Julias and the Bittmans,… Read more »
Back in the day – that is, before we had kids – we took our vacation eats very seriously. We’d start booking tables within minutes of reserving our flights. We’d procure a copy of a magical thing called “The Zagat Guide,” and we’d begin plotting our sight-seeing itinerary around the places that served the most authentic migas/coffee/minestrone/cassoulet/lobster rolls/etc. From a… Read more »
This past weekend, with a certain amount of glee, I told the girls that the kitchen was closed for business. I had just come off a week or two of recipe testing and large-scale cooking, Andy was traveling, and with a packed weekend, it was as good a time as any to grab food on the go. So we ordered… Read more »
Anyone who has ever volunteered at school will appreciate the scene in my kitchen all day yesterday: Dozens of 28-ounce cans of diced tomatoes and cannellini beans, enough chopped onions to kill a small animal, large, misshapen bags of frozen homemade chicken stock thawing in the sink, two 6-quart Dutch Ovens on the stovetop, and one lobster pot on the… Read more »
This is what the sky looked like every day when we were in Utah visiting friends last week. EVERY DAY. The photo above was taken at the top of Brighton, but we hit a few other mountains in the area — Canyons and Solitude — and no matter where we went, that sky followed us. Like it knew something. Like… Read more »
A few soda-related joys in life: Icy Coke with grilled cheese after a day at the beach; a can of Dr. Pepper to wash down my slice at Sal’s Pizzeria; Orange soda — the nasty, neon kind– with grilled hot dogs at my elementary school end-of-the-year picnics circa 1978. My kids have no such romantic association with soda. Last weekend,… Read more »
Happy New Year Everyone. Hope you’re still at your resolutions. (By my clock, we all have another few hours before we abandon them completely.) Me? I grabbed 2015 by the horns – I think by noon on January 1, the tree had been disrobed and curbed; the basement, organized; the contents of Phoebe’s Fibber-McGee-and-Molly closet sorted into three boxes –… Read more »
We know what we’re having for Christmas dinner: The same exact thing we have every Christmas dinner, right down to the salad dressing and the sides. The trouble comes on the nights before and after, when we’ve got family over, friends stopping by, or a bunch of hungry kids sitting around the condo after a day of skiing. On these… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
