I remember exactly where I was when I read the short story, “Pastoralia,” by George Saunders: I was finishing lunch at my desk, back when I had hair and worked at Esquire magazine on 55th Street. As soon as I finished, I copied it and – this was 2000, remember – faxed it to a couple of the writers I worked… Read more »
Here at DALS we believe the only thing that screams “summer” louder than a tomato sandwich is an afternoon on a hammock curled up with a good paperback. (Or a nice icy cold iPad.) That’s why this July, in addition to getting recipes for grilled steaks and fresh summer salads, you’ll be getting what we think are some pretty cool… Read more »
Beautiful, ain’t he? I mean, if you can get past the dreary little jacket of rust, and the melted plastic handle, and the whipped-dog, eyes-averted, kind of sad posture of a guy that has been forced to spend his life outside, alone, on a patio. In the fall, he catches dying leaves and plays home to a colony of spiders…. Read more »
Are you the lucky person in charge of figuring out dinner for the Fourth of July Celebration? (Yes, I meant “lucky!”) Check in with DALS this whole week for a line-up of crowd-pleasers and show-stoppers. Andy is even threatening to weigh in with a post titled: The One Object Every Serious Griller Should Own. Aren’t you curious? Come back and… Read more »
Which recipe style do you like better? RECIPE STYLE 1: Conventional The style most magazines and cookbooks go with where all ingredients written in a list before the instructions. Like this delicious looking tagliatelle I will be making soon. OR RECIPE STYLE 2: Casual Ingredients are integrated with instruction using casual estimates for measurements (“a handful of walnuts” or “a few… Read more »
Here’s a question: how do you get your kids to try something new? We’ve deployed various methods over the years, including but not limited to: bribery (eat this, get that), blackmail (you don’t eat this, you don’t get that), begging (dear god, I am begging you, just one bite), guilt (but poor mommy spent twenty minutes making these fava beans for you!),… Read more »
Those of you who occasionally join the DALS conversation may have noticed a special encrypted code phrase about winning a Beansoup apron in the comment fields recently. And, if you were like my 7-year-old, you may have then had the thought “What about me? How do I win the apron??” Don’t worry, you can be eligible to win fun stuff,… Read more »
It’s Mother’s Day morning, and Jenny is standing over me with her iPhone, timing me as I type this. The goal is to write this post in seven and a half minutes or less, which is exactly how long it took us to get this dinner going the other night. So: have you had ramps before? We hadn’t either, as… Read more »
I once read an Q&A with Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) where the interviewer asked something to the effect of “What’s your secret? How do you know how to relate to kids so well?” This was a while ago – probably 2006ish – so I may not remember his answer word for word, but I remember the gist of it…. Read more »
This is so easy — please, if you have your phone with you, text JAPAN to 50555 to make a $10 donation to Global Giving. It will take you under 15 seconds and will help their on-the-ground efforts to provide relief and vital services to victims of Friday’s earthquake and tsunami. If everyone who shows up on DALS today does… Read more »
Last Thursday, I started hating myself a full hour before my morning coffee. If you must know, I started hating myself at precisely 8:04, which was the first time I yelled at my kids who were in danger of missing the 8:09 bus. Yelling Where are your shoes and yelling Where are your gloves and Did you brush your teeth and… Read more »
On any given winter day in my house, if I ask the innocent question cooks across the earth are asking — i.e. What should we have for dinner tonight? — I can pretty much always count on Andy suggesting some kind of healthy, simple seafood; I would bet the house on Abby requesting — please, Mom, puh-leeeeeeze, I’ll kiss you 99 trillion… Read more »
Hi there. Just wanted to let you know we are working on a DALS recipe index so you will soon be able to search by ingredient, by season, by dish type and by mood (“I’m walking in the door at 6:00 and must eat at 6:30?” or “It’s Sunday and I have a whole glorious afternoon to cook!”) without having… Read more »
I don’t know how to even start an entry like this. This is Liam, 6, who died on Monday. I never met him. I met his mother, the unstoppable Gretchen Holt Witt, when I worked at Real Simple. She worked at Oxo (she still does) and our paths crossed on a bunch of stories there and a few years later… 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…. Read more »
I can’t remember ever making this Official Family Policy, but Jenny and I are completely powerless against a kid — our kid — who asks us to buy her a book instead of check it out at the library. (Full disclosure: We love books and are happy to encourage as much reading as possible in our house, but if we’re… Read more »
Santa: Hello? [To elf] I don’t think this thing is working. There’s no one… [Into phone] Hello? Hello? DALS: Hi, Santa. Santa? I’m here. Santa: Oh, okay. [To elf] It’s working now, Shorty. Go wrap. [Into phone] So, what can I do for you? DALS: First, I just wanted to say it’s an honor talking to you and thanks so much for… Read more »
Time for Dinner cracks Bon Appetit’s Favorite Cookbooks of 2010 list! And as if that’s not already exciting enough, they put us right next to Paul Greenberg and a few doors down from Allegra Goodman.
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
