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 »
I made these hasselbacks for Sunday dinner with the most beautiful little sweet potatoes I picked up at the market on Saturday. They were misshapen, small, pale peach colored, not even in the same family as the bloated, cloying sugar bombs you get at the supermarket. “Do you know about hasselbacks?” I asked Andy when I pulled them out of… 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 »
. We have just returned from our annual South Carolina beach pilgrimage, where among other things, we stockpiled our Duke’s mayo, grilled and cooked the usual suspects, and did our best to pretend that summer vacation is not over in two weeks and one day. How can it be that, as of this morning, half the house has staggered off to… Read more »
. I was so happy when Short Stack Editions reached out to me a few weeks ago to see if I wanted to check out their latest volume, Cucumbers. For starters, their single-ingredient, expertly-designed booklets never fail to deliver on the recipe MVP front. (I’m guessing there are a good number of people reading this who have made Pasta Con Ceci — pulled… Read more »
I’m pleased to announce that, as of Monday, my annual cookbook round-up for the Times Book Review is live and ready for your reading pleasure. As you know, I always love this assignment, not only because I get to pore over beautiful books all spring, but because it really forces me to cook outside my comfort zone, to seek out new… Read more »
For my birthday last month, I asked for two things: A Shake Shack picnic dinner at our local Hudson River waterfront park — a success by all accounts — and a family vegetable garden. By “vegetable garden” I did not mean one-clicking a few raised bed kits on Amazon and calling it a day. I meant that I wanted everyone in the… Read more »
That’s what Andy said when he tried a bite of the inaugural Chocolate Chess Pie we baked on Friday: Maybe the best pie ever. Before I get into the details, let me just remind the readership at large here that Andy loves nothing more than a superlative. (<- Which is itself, of course, a superlative.) About the tomato sandwich he eats during… Read more »
What I’m reading and eating this week: Is your tween or teenager obsessed with 13 Reasons Why, the Netflix series that some argue romanticizes suicide? Here are some good talking points from the Jed Foundation if so. (More guidance from the National Association of School Psychologists) Another reason to love John Green: His laptop art. Just pre-ordered The Dinner Party. On my dinner… Read more »
On vacation in South Carolina last week – one for the books I might add – the girls and I were riding our bikes over a bridge, the golden marsh stretching out for miles on both sides of us, Abby turned to me and said “What if for dinner tonight we turned pizza into a salad?” “You mean salad pizza?”… Read more »
You should see my freezer right now. There are amorphous Ziplocks of homemade chicken stock, a bag of pre-soaked beans, a bag of fully baked beans, some shredded chicken from taco night last month, a single sausage here, a chicken drumstick there, a sliced mini loaf of the crazy delicious Danish rye bread from Great Northern Food Hall (so good with… Read more »
What We’re Eating and Reading (and Watching and Listening to) This Week: A few weeks ago, my neighbors sent me the “Saturday in the Park” Box from Brooklyn Larder to thank us for our patience during their construction project. In addition to it being a very nice gesture, I’ve been replicating the spread on my own ever since with great success…. Read more »
I would say the second* most popular conversation at our dinner table lately has been: If you could have another house anywhere on earth where would it be? (The assumption being that our little hamlet in Westchester County, is everybody’s first choice. Yesss 914!) Typical answers tend to lean toward the absurdly exotic and end in “i:” Bali, Fiji, Kauai…but… Read more »
Ask me who won the Super Bowl last year. Or which teams were even in it. Was it the Deflate-gate game? Did Janet Jackson’s top fall off mid-halftime-show? Was Lawrence Taylor MVP? I’m not proud of my ignorance, but at least I have some company. As we head into Super Bowl 51 weekend, there’s a good chance that one of… Read more »
A few weeks ago I gave a talk at the Museum of Food and Drink in Brooklyn, and during the Q&A period at the end, someone asked the million dollar question: What’s for dinner tonight? Because I’m a faithful follower of the dinner-in-the-morning religion (for the uninitiated: The practice of taking a few seconds to decide what’s on the menu… Read more »
How ya doing on those New Year’s resolutions? I’m pleased to report that it’s only Day Five of 2017 and yet I’ve already checked off THREE of my big ones: Edit and organize passwords on important accounts, book mammogram, and start every single day with a Starbucks Grande Pike or its caffeine equivalent. (I take it to heart to set… 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 »
Apologies for being MIA. As you might have gathered from the last post I wrote, it was a rough week in the DALS house, and to be honest, a week and a few cabinet appointments later, I know we’re not alone in fearing that things might only get rougher. If I had to acknowledge a few bright spots, though, I’d… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
