Our annual trip to South Carolina has been the textbook definition of vacation. There are pools. There are beaches. There is kayaking and backhand-winner-ing and oyster shoveling. There is napping in the big chair on the patio, book splayed across chest. There is Making of a Murderer binge-watching. (OMG OMG OMG!) There is gin-and-tonic-ing. There is Cinnamon-Frosted-Pop-Tart-ing. There is running on… Read more »
Who: The Family DALS What: Dumpling Dinner When: Wednesday Early Evening, Day 4 of a 6-Day, 90-Plus Degree Heat Wave Where: Somewhere in Suburban New York Why: Try them 6:30 I guess I should think about dinner. 6:31 Open fridge. Summer spinach, almost wilted, staring at me. Quick scan reveals heel of cabbage, bag of organic (yet still tasteless) shredded… Read more »
Here on DALS, veteran readers might have guessed by now, I’ve attempted to solve a whole range of dinner quandaries, from the quick-and-dirty meals you need in your arsenal on a Tuesday night, to the turkey you need in the center of the table on Thanksgiving. Amazingly, though, in the nearly 950 (!) posts I’ve written here, I’ve never once… Read more »
My usual rule of thumb is that there should be one thing on the dinner plate that is fresh, as in a vegetable that is raw, crispy, uncooked, bright. It’s why we eat so much slaw in our house. Nothing cuts the richness of a pork chop quite the way a vinegary pile of cabbage can. But occasionally, we shake… Read more »
We think of it as the Eleventh Commandment: When entertaining, thou shall not make food that requires too much time away from your guests. And though it’s easy to forget this when the weather is warm and the parties move outside and the grill is up and running, the rule still applies. We learned this the hard way that one… Read more »
No, the word is not “yakitori,” though that is what you are looking at above, and that does play a small role in this post. A delicious role, actually…all scalliony and salty and glazy. No, yakitori, as good as it is on the grill, shared with friends on a Saturday summer night, that is not the word I want to talk about… Read more »
A few weeks ago, under the category of “Nice Work if You Can Get it,” I was tasked with tracking down the best cookbooks of the spring for the Times. Those of you who made your way through that round-up (bless you, it was a lot), might remember one of the stand-outs: Tasting Rome, by Katie Parla and Kristina Gill,… Read more »
I’m not going to deliver my annual monologue on how heaviness and happiness so uniquely join forces in June. Moving on, moving up, stepping up, growing up, graduating, saying goodbye again and again, you know the drill. In fact, I think I’ve come to appreciate the amped up end-of-the-school-year craziness (I laughed out loud at this parent’s lament) because it… Read more »
If you’re like most people, the first place your mind goes when it’s time to dream up Father’s Day gifts is outside, in the general direction of the grill. And if the dad in question is like most dads, he already has his fair share of tongs, trays, tools and toys. Here’s an idea: How about something that actually gets… Read more »
Eric Ripert’s accomplishments are endless and impressive: Michelin-starred chef at New York’s Le Bernardin. Longtime TV host of PBS’s “Avec Eric.” Author of several award-winning cookbooks, and, just this month, author of a riveting coming-of-age memoir, 32 Yolks. (Subtitle: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line) But for our purposes today, he’s a father, and like a lot of parents… Read more »
Two things today. First: Big huge apologies for all the ridiculous spamming action happening on your feedly feeds and on my homepage here lately. I’m not sure who or what is behind it, but one thing is clear: I have been hacked. And though I’m not exactly going to tell you it’s been fun, I will say that I’m touched… Read more »
Anatomy of a Weeknight Dinner, Thursday May 5. 7:00 am Shower, get dressed, dig yesterday’s still-packed lunch bags out of backpacks even though Allowance Rules decree the removal of lunch bags from backpacks by owners of said lunch bags. 8:00 am Before leaving for school drop-off, remove pork loin from freezer and add to bowl of water for thawing. 8:15… Read more »
I have a lot of favorite moments in Katherine Wilson’s hilarious memoir, Only in Naples, but my most favorite is when she describes her Neapolitan mother-in-law, Raffaella, staring at a ring of measuring spoons in Wilson’s American kitchen “as if they were an archaeological find.” Cooking in Naples is a feel-as-you-go expression of love, not an exercise in precision, just as… Read more »
I keep asking everyone: Have you seen rhubarb at the market yet? Have you? Have you? It’s not even that I love the stuff so much, it’s more that I love what rhubarb signifies: Spring. Farmer’s markets. Fresh herby salads. But yes, it does help that I haven’t been able to get the idea of a sweet and sour rhubarb… Read more »
Last year, my twin brother returned from a trip to Hawaii and talked not about the dramatic cliffs of Kauai or the striated sunsets over the Pacific, but about the Ahi Poke. “Let’s make it,” he texted in anticipation of his weekend visit to our house. A few minutes later, another text: This time just a recipe link. I had… Read more »
I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but here in New York, the magnolia trees and forsythia are in full force, baseball has taken over my 1010 WINS sports report, and the market is slowly but surely becoming more plentiful in the asparagus department. In honor of that, I thought you might like a pizza recipe that takes… Read more »
It was only Tuesday, so in theory, there should’ve been options when I opened the refrigerator to figure out dinner. Didn’t we just go shopping, like, yesterday? At this point in my life, I’m no longer surprised to see Phoebe eat her way through a gigantic container of pineapple chunks before we’ve even finished unpacking groceries. But dinner staples? That’s… Read more »
Sl0w-cooker evangelists, maybe skip the next few sentences please, because I know how you feel completely betrayed whenever I say something with even the whiff of negativity about your beloved crock pots. And I get it: What’s there not to love about a meal that involves minimal prep and cooks itself all day long freeing you from your dinner shackles… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
