Food Features

On this day 18 years ago I was on a plane flying to New York City to spend a weekend with my daughter, Anne, who was attending law school at Columbia. The flight had been rescheduled from a week earlier due to the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack. The mood on the plane was […]

As fires raging in the Amazon rainforest dominate recent news, the global importance of eating local has never been more apparent. While public attention to these wildfires is new, the fires are not a sudden phenomenon, nor are they accidental. For years, cattle ranchers and loggers have been setting fires to sections of the rainforest […]

What a long strange trip it’s been! This line from the Grateful Dead’s song “Truckin” keeps going through my head as I look back at the events of the last three days. It all started with an email I received: “Hi Peter. I work with Nonesuch on public relations, and we’ve received quite a bit […]

Eggplant is in peak season right now, and will continue to grace the tables at farmers markets until frost. Also know as aubergine, eggplant is low in calories, nutrient-rich, and loaded with fiber and antioxidants. This versatile fruit is widely consumed throughout Asia and the Middle East and comes in a range of colors and […]

“It’s too darn hot! It’s too darn hot!” These lyrics from Cole Porter’s musical Kiss Me Kate have been going through my head these past few weeks. The temperature around the stove at Nonesuch, the restaurant where I work, consistently hovers around 96 degrees F, even with the air conditioner going full blast. The temperatures […]

“On fair day my mother would always get up at four o’clock in the morning to fry chicken to take along,” my grandmother mused as we drove along looking for the best parking deal. “She’d pack up a picnic and we’d sit on the hillside and eat.” During the Depression, she explained, outbreaks of food […]

The average American household throws away more than $1,500 worth of food every year, according to the James Beard Foundation. Last year the foundation launched Waste Not, a multi-year campaign to educate consumers on full-use cooking –  how to use all the food you buy and avoid food waste. Waste Not: How to Get the […]

Buckle, grunt, cobbler, Betty, crumble and crisp. What sounds like a ragtag cast of characters from a comic book are actually the shining stars of the summer’s dessert scene. Quick, adaptable and simple to make, these are recipes that every home cook should have in his back pocket. All are baked desserts, often in a […]

Just as a pilot trains in a flight simulator before taking off in a 737, before I ever performed a dental procedure in the mouth of a living person I had rehearsed the operation numerous times over a two-year training period on plastic models, extracted human teeth and jawbones of butchered pigs. Even with all […]

The grill can be difficult to master. Grilled chicken legs, for example, sounds straightforward enough, but cooking them evenly without burning the skin into a mess of char takes attention and time. And while I love grilling out for a party, I don’t like fooling around with meat thermometers, waiting for food to be done. […]