Latest posts
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pasta, spring garlic, fava shoots, coriander seed, parmesan
Categories: Meals at homeI really love fava beans, but no matter how many I buy, it seems I always end up with only a few spoonfuls of the treat itself once I’ve removed the inedible parts. An article in bon appétit even includes them in their list of ‘jerk vegetables’, where they’re concerned only with the amount of…
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bratwurst, sauerkraut und salzkartoffeln am dekorationstag
Categories: Meals at homeIt was Decoration Day, when most Americans pay more attention to the culture of the American cookout, on what is observed, unofficially, as the first day of summer, than the nature or meaning of the holiday, the almost silly controversies about its origins, or what I think of as its continuing problematic significance. We cooked…
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marinated goat chops; green garlic-sauté cucumber; kale
Categories: Meals at homeThe picture reminds me of how good the meal was, and I’m happy with some of the details it describes, since I could easily have just repeated much of the formula I’ve used with so many of the the goat chops I’ve served. At least some of the credit for the innovations must be ascribed to…
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breakfast, the sunday before decoration day, with no graves
Categories: Meals at homeIt looks like a holiday celebration. Of course I’m thinking of something that used to be called ‘Decoration Day‘, something beyond the morbid, more modern American celebration of soldiers fallen in the name of our national military fetish. I would prefer to think of this late spring weekend as an occasion when people gather, put…
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flounder, spring garlic, morels; potato; asparagus, thyme
Categories: Meals at homeI’m new to cooking with morels (who isn’t, other than the lucky few who can hunt them in nearby fields?); I think I still have work to do on these prized and very expensive fungi, assuming I save up enough for another go: Maybe I’m too allied to Mediterranean cookery, but while this approach with…
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spaghetti, oil, spring garlic, peperoncino, garlic mustard
Categories: Meals at homeWe had been to the theater, a stunning performance of Sam Shepard’s ‘Curse of the Starving Class’, and, both stimulated and disturbed, we’d decided to head for the comfort of our home table rather than eat out (food, and eating both feature large in the play). We didn’t arrive home until about 10:30. Dinner would have…
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duck, lovage; roasted squash/celery/radish, thyme; spinach
Categories: Meals at homeWhile the photograph above is my favorite image of this meal, this one may really describe it better: On Monday afternoon, the same day I had picked up the swordfish belly that I prepared that night, I had also bought one fresh duck breast. At the time I was thinking of it as a small…
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swordfish belly, garlic, tomato; potato, garlic mustard; kale
Categories: Meals at homeIt’s not tofu. It’s swordfish belly, and, inexplicably it’s still almost invisible on the internet. This is the second time I’ve prepared it at home, improvising a separate recipe each time. This one seemed even better than the first one. What it’s also not, is swordfish ‘bacon’, so just ignore the people describing it that way: …
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grilled buffalo steak; tomato, wild fennel; asparagus, thyme
Categories: Meals at homeI wasn’t sure what to do. I knew it would taste great, for one thing, because it was water buffalo, but also because it was a chuck steak. What I wasn’t sure was how I should cook it. Buffalo is leaner than beef, and so it needs less time and lower heat on the grill pan.…
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pasta, spring garlic, chili, tomato, anchovy, crumb, parsley
Categories: Meals at homeThe meal was supposed to be little more that a “knee play” (Philip Glass defines a knee play as an interlude between acts, as “the ‘knee’ or joining function that humans’ anatomical knees perform), but it turned out to be a pretty sophisticated savory dish on its own. I normally think of these modest pasta dishes as both links…