A week ago, I did something I’ve never done before: I loaded up my car with a few groceries, kissed my kids goodbye, and drove a few hours north to attend a five-day artist residency at The Spruceton Inn in the Catskills. As I pulled on to 87 North, I flashbacked to the last time I was away from my… Read more »
So like a lot of you guys out there, we’ve cut back on meat in our house pretty significantly in the last few years, which probably seems pretty obvious to anyone reading this blog with regularity. For the most part, it’s been a gradual process, one that has been helped along by the ever-growing body of research on the environmental impact… Read more »
It occurred to me the other day that I’ve never made this classic in my house even though it is literally impossible for the family NOT to order it when it’s on a restaurant menu. I got a lot of requests last night when I instagrammed it, so here is the official recipe. Happy Monday everybody! Wedge Salad Makes 8… Read more »
What I’m reading and eating this week: Wanna save Democracy? Read a novel. My kind of dinner: Crispy Rice with Shrimp, Bacon, and Corn. The Unbearable Sameness of Cities. Did you know that everyone has a cheese that matches their personality? Read of the week: The Education of Bill Oliver. This is amazing. Is anyone else addicted to Weelicious’s Smoothie… Read more »
Last week, we used a Western Mass camp drop-off as an excuse to explore the Catskills (right across the MA/NY border) and had the nicest 48-hour mini vacation. Scribner’s Catskill Lodge was our home base and if you’re local, I can’t recommend it highly enough. (Ask about their mid-week discounts if you can swing mid-week.) Read of the week: How… Read more »
When my first book, Dinner: A Love Story, came out, I will never forget my agent calling me to discuss publishing the book in England. “There’s an agent over there who wants to buy the rights for it,” she told me, “but he’s concerned about all the Trader Joe’s talk and ground turkey recipes.” The Trader Joe’s thing I understood,… 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 »
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 »
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 »
Quick one today. Just a few tips and tricks to up your game in the kitchen, beginning with number 1 (above), The Tomato Can Pizza Stand. Backstory: There were exactly two days this past summer when the kids’ sleepaway camps overlapped. And on those two nights, we ate well. One night we cooked at home and made Scallops with Corn and Bacon Hash… Read more »
If I was a smarter blogger, I would’ve posted a good old-fashioned downloadable back-to-school menu for you today (like I did when I was my best blogger self back in 2013) complete with strategies, under-30-minute tricks, and cook-once-eat-twice kind of ideas that make up the backbone of family cooking. You have my word that I will try to be smarter… Read more »
For better or for worse, when I’m trying to decide what to have for dinner — especially a weekend dinner — I’m hardwired to start the brainstorming with the main dish. And for better or worse, the main dish is usually a pile of protein. On Saturday morning, as Andy and I wandered the farmer’s market, that was implicit in… Read more »
For the last few weeks, when dinnertime rolls around I haven’t found myself where I like to be the most, namely sitting around a table with my family, downloading the day’s events over a plate of something quick and fresh. Instead, I’m sitting in a parking lot or on bleachers or walking around a track waiting for a practice to… Read more »
Last week, when Susan Collins, Republican Senator of Maine, broke with her party to vote against Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, I know what you were all thinking: Yeah, it’s good to know where she stands on vouchers and charter schools, but what I really want to know is: Where does she stand on meatloaf? I hear you! As any… Read more »
What can I do? We’ve all heard ourselves asking this when friends are struggling with illness (their own or their aging parents’ or their kids’) and we’ve all probably come back around to a similar answer: Food. For better (normalcy) or for worse (one more thing to be exhausted by), people still need to eat. In my mind — this… Read more »
Lest I miss out on all of the Year-in-Review fun that everyone seems to be having as we wrap up yet another one, I thought I’d try something a little radical: Present all the dinners I cooked in 2016, as recorded in my Dinner Diary. I know: Super exciting! But the headlines this year were so boring and business-as-usual, so what… Read more »
Over the past few months, I’ve noticed an uptick in compliments aimed in the direction of my salads, even when they are of the run-of-the-mill leaf-and-tomato variety. “What is in this?” My friend Todd asked early on in the summer, referring to his bountiful helping of greens. “I need the recipe for this,” my neighbor (and genius filmmaker) Ed said,… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
