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 […]
Food & Drink
Celebrate eggplant season
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 […]
Cool food after a hot run
“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 […]
Fried chicken for the fair
“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 […]
Too much watermelon!
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 […]
Bake a fruity dessert for any season
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 […]
How you’ll be making eggs from now on
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 […]
Oops! I did it again.
Overcome by the zeal of spring gardening, I planted way too many cucumber plants and am once more inundated with daily harvests of bright green fruit. In addition to filling out my dinner table from June until frost, cucumber plants are much loved by pollinators, from fat, fuzzy bumblebees to homely moths and wasps. Each […]
Quick pickles, for a sexy kick
My summers during college and dental school were spent farming with Julianne’s grandfather, Bob Stevens, on North Cotton Hill Road. We were what was known as a “truck farm,” a term that hearkens back to an earlier time when the produce in our markets came from local farmers rather than being shipped in from places […]
The secret to grilling? The oven.
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. […]
Optimal flavor starts with superior seeds
In a recent op-ed published in the New York Times, renowned chef and author Dan Barber wrote: “As a chef I can tell you that your meal will be incalculably more delicious if I’m cooking with good ingredients.” This should be self-evident, yet the unfortunate reality is that, in the case of fresh vegetables, optimally […]
Celebrate cabbage
I’ve often wondered why, amongst the superfood dino kale and Brussels sprouts craze, old-fashioned cabbage hasn’t been more celebrated. Versatile, inexpensive, nutritious and only 22 calories per cup, cabbage packs the same nutritional punch as its more popular cousins. In fact, all the cruciferous vegetables are rich in fiber, vitamin C and inflammation-fighting anthocyanins. Under […]
