If I didn’t know that September was here by the first-day-of-school butterflies, the sudden, almost primal urge to re-organize my bulletin board, or the to-do list spinning through my brain like a slot machine at 3am, I’d know it by looking at my DALS email inbox. Help! You all write. I need quick dinner ideas for the back-to-school scramble. I started replying one… Read more »
This recipe for Potato Salad “Buttered” and Lemoned, comes from the Canal House cookbook series, volume 1, and when I first flipped through the pages and landed on the recipe, I thought something along the lines of: Holy Freaking Cow. I need to make this NOW. Who cares if it calls for preserved lemons, the recipe for which is in the… Read more »
Something rare and wonderful happened about a month ago: both — BOTH — of our daughters were invited to a birthday party, on Saturday night from 6:00-8:00. That’s two hours. On a Saturday night. Which was on Saturday. Which is the day that immediately follows Friday, which is also a good day, but not nearly as good as the one… Read more »
I wish I could say that the inspiration for this meal came from a stroll through my farmer’s market — from those gorgeous bunches of lacinato kale and bushels of Romano beans; from the juicy blackberries and rosy, plump apricots and white nectarines; from the summer spinach that seems to coo: Come hither! Slather me in olive oil and toss… 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 »
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… Read more »
There was a time in my life when Sunday meant sitting down with my Dinner Diary and mapping out a meal plan for the week. Like this line-up from June 14-18, 2004: Monday: Fried Sole with Green Beans Tuesday: Ravioli with Green Salad Wednesday: Fajitas with Black Beans and Cheddar Thursday: Curried Chicken with Apples Friday: OUT (always in caps, always!) I remember… 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 »
Ever since we started tuning in to American Idol with the girls, I have caught myself saying something I don’t think I’ve ever said before: TGIF. Sometimes in the elevator out loud to a coworker, sometimes in my own head as I’m pulling into my driveway dreaming up quick dinner options. Cause even though the show is on Wednesdays and… Read more »
Full disclosure here: I think I knew the winner of my Go-to Weeknight Dinner Contest almost as soon as I spied the Sausage, Kale, and Bean Stew entry submitted by “anna” on Day 1 of the contest. Every recipe that came in after this one, as far as I was concerned, had to pass the anna test — as in, is… 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 »
There are some nice things about waking up to the automated phone message: Schools Closed Due to Inclement Weather. Sleeping in, for starters. (Though the novelty of this wears off at 8:01, which is usually about the time I first hear “Mom, I’m borrrrrred.”) Another nice thing: The realization that I was fired last year, so I am no longer required… Read more »
If you’ve been following this blog for a little while, you know by now that salmon was the first fish our kids ate. Which was fine by us — it was healthy, flavorful, and one of the few foods (in general) that we could all eat the exact same way at the dinner table. So we ate a lot of… Read more »
One of my biggest pet peeves about a lot of recipes and cookbooks supposedly geared towards families, is the multiple appearances by this sentence: “And your kids will love it, too!” It is usually tacked on to the end of a recipe intro as though the phrase alone will make the scrumptious looking Crab and Kale Cakes (with Rouille!) magically… Read more »
A few months ago, I got this email from reader Rebecca: “I have no idea what to give to new parents or the bereaved–you know, those occasions in life when a casserole is all but mandatory. I want so badly to show that I care by offering simple nourishment, and all I have in my repertoire are a tired lasagna or straight-out-of-the-1950’s… Read more »
Let me just start by saying this recipe is not a 30-Minute Meal. Nor is it a One Pot Wonder, a Five Ingredient Dinner, a Fix-it-and-Forget-it Dish or any of the other cute little titles dished up daily in magazines, cookbooks, and, um, blogs exactly like this one. This minestrone, which Pilar first introduced me to in 2004, is not… Read more »
Phoebe was captivated by the the row of weeklies and their splashy covers on display at CVS last weekend. “Is that the new princess?” she asked. (I hoped she wasn’t referring to any of the half-dozen half-naked Kardashians.) I looked from Us Weekly to Star across to Hello. Yes! I said. That’s Kate Middleton. She’s the Salmon of Wales! It… Read more »
As far as omens go, it doesn’t get much worse than this. On a Wednesday evening a couple weeks ago, at about 7:30 pm, I proposed something radical: how about we eat on the couch tonight, while watching… Game One of the American League Division Series! This was greeted with surprising enthusiasm. Abby and Phoebe marched over with their plates… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
