Korean-ish Short Rib Sandwich

Last weekend, the Frenchman and I journeyed to Charleston, South Carolina, and it was delightful. It felt like a proper break, a real disengagement from the ho-hum of everyday, and there is nothing I adore more than traveling avec mon amour. The monsieur travels to Atlanta for work on the regular, but I had never been to the south before.

I loved the narrow houses of Charleston, the skinny side porches, some adorned with hanging plants or wind chimes, some old and listing like a tipsy uncle. I loved the real gas lamps burning, picturesque but inexplicable, in the light and heat of a May day. I loved the properties overlaid with vines, such bombastic vegetation and the smell of honeysuckle everywhere.

I loved the drive to Sullivan’s Island, across the long, modern bridge; rising with airs over the flat brown water and the skeletons of industrial machinery. I loved the walk across the packed, wavy, clay sand, to the receding line of the water where we found razor clam shells as long as a witch’s fingernail.

I loved the heat, thick enough to jar and only May, and the soundtrack of bug callings, and the line of oaks as old as this county: Imagine! they will outlive us all. I loved the weeping tree by the lagoon, the branches so thick and so low they meant to scoop us up and carry us off to who knows where. And then the lick of poppies, in front of the old house and beside the pecan tree, so loud and red and unembarrassed. Read more »

Spring Onion-and-Herb Tart

Goodness gracious, these past few weeks have been busy. If you’ll allow me, I’d also like to blame the farmers market (and the weather, I suppose, by extention) for my temporary absence from the airwaves: the overall lack of new and snazzy green things has left me a bit writer’s blocked.

But here we are! With a tart! It’s mighty tasty. It makes great brunch, lunch, or dinner. (Add a salad, and perhaps some roasted taters, and you’re in business.) It works for right now, with whatever vegetation you can scrounge at the market, but it will also work later, when peas and asparagus finally do make an appearance. It will continue to work once summer produce–tomatoes!–arrive.

This tart is like a quiche, but with half the guilt, half the commitment: it’s fairy thin, so you won’t feel heavy or fatigued after enjoying it. You are very welcome to take the tart base, and the dairy, and then invent your own tart from there. Vegetables, herbs, and cheese: go crazy! Get inventing. Read more »

Not-So-Virtuous Kale and Brussels Sprouts Salad

Trust me, dear readers: I so badly wanted to provide a super verdant, completely fresh, hugely springtime recipe today. I wanted to be like every other food magazine, extolling the virtues of tender spring peas swimming in warm cream, or mashed with hot pepper against a scrap of olive oiled toast. Of course I want to stir ramps into my Carbonara, or braise skinny stalks of asparagus in Meyer lemon. I’ve been siting on a fava bean soup recipe for the better part of a year.

But do you know what I found at the farmers market yesterday? Root vegetables. Oh, root vegetables: it’s nothing personal, but you’re starting to depress me. Beets, carrots, and sweet potatoes. Turnips, and not the sweet baby spring ones (that should be roasted and eaten at room temperature, dribbled in spring-garlicky aioli), but turnips the size of softballs. There was not a single stalk of rhubarb hidden behind the parsnips.

I did find kale and brussels sprouts in abundance, though, and while I’m not a huge fan of either–the kale (in everything) and brussels sprouts (with bacon) craze is largely lost on me–I jumped at their mere greenness. It’s almost a spring salad, right? Right? Read more »

Customizable Custard

The Frenchman is not one for desserts. He enjoys fruit, or yogurt with a spoonful of jam, but that’s generally the limit. Even when he does partake, his catalog is limited: pain au chocolat (which, I might point out, is technically breakfast), crème brûlée, or a square of dark chocolate. His motto is, “If you aren’t still hungry after a meal, why eat dessert?”

Wait, what? Before meeting him, I never considered hunger as the reason to eat dessert.

My incomprehension at Monsieur French Toast’s anti-dessert tendencies aside, most of the time I wish I could magically adopt this part of his personality. Wouldn’t it be lovely to wake up one morning and not care one iota for the perfect chocolate chip cookie: edges caramelized, chewy, insides pillowy and heady with brown butter; a constellation of fleur de sel across the top?

Sadly, this is not the case. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I’m mainlining caramels, but still: after four plus years together, he has yet to convince me that eating an apple is just as pleasurable as a shortbread cookie. Read more »

Chocolate-Banana “Piñatas”

When I was very young, my father owned a Tex-Mex restaurant. (Apparently, one of the first of its kind in the New York area.) What I remember best are the cowhide booths; soft swirls of brown and white I could trace with my fingers. I remember fresh tortilla chips and runny, spiced salsa. I think I ate swordfish every time we visited, which was often.

And then dessert. There was, on the menu, something dubbed the “piñata”: an oblong ceramic dish, a mess of bananas and chocolate chips baked under what must have been sweet empenada dough. It arrived piping hot, a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting over the top. Even though there could not be a less fancy dessert, I have never forgotten it. Read more »

Put the Lime in the Coconut Muffins

Sometimes, when I’m juggling eight tasks at once and feeling like a chicken sans tête, cooking needs to be simple to compensate. These muffins are simple. They take an hour to make from start to finish, and then you have breakfast and snacks for the better part of the week. Take half to work with you for instant office popularity.

There’s nothing complicated about this recipe, and nothing onerous about these ingredients. There is only the happy marriage of coconut, lime, and banana, each flavor in a supporting role. If you live somewhere as cold and gray as New York is right now, I hope these muffins will put you in mind of a beachy, tropical cocktail.

So take a minute to yourself. Enjoy one (or a few, who’s counting?) with tea or coffee. You deserve it. Read more »

Lentil Salad with Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette

I’ve been thinking a lot about tone and voice, and how they pertain to this blog. Although I’ve never been one for diary writing, for straightforward personal confession, I admit this is a journal of sorts. It details what I am cooking in a particular moment, as well as selected events around each recipe. I suppose creative writing of any stripe is its own kind of confession.

After a year plus of writing this blog, I’m sure my recipe-developing skills have improved. (I need only look to the archives to know this.) Part of me wants to scurry back and tweak what I know can be bettered, while another part of me is comforted by the fact that I can trace the changes. (I’m sure I’ve read similar sentiments voiced by Emma at Poires au Chocolat, but I can’t find where.) My photography skills have progressed too, as I’ve slowly learned the manual functions on my camera. Post recent birthday, I have loftier hopes still, thanks to a new lens (merci, darling Frenchman), a better editing system, and my first tripod (thanks, Mom).

But what about the other portion of the blog? The essay, the headnote, the this. When I read advice from successful bloggers, the same opinion is often echoed: “find your personal voice”, or “be yourself”. But how does one consciously follow this advice? If the hallmark of a successful blog is the convergence of skilled writing and a defined, likable personality, what qualifies the personality? From the writer’s perspective, where is the demarcating line, the happy medium, between inviting a reader into your life, and giving away the store? Read more »

Lamb Ragu with Pappardelle

A few weeks ago, I tagged along on a road trip to Kinderhook Farm, located a few hours north of New York City in Ghent, New York. The animals who live there are extremely well cared for. The visit was excellent for several reasons.

The farm is gorgeous: a mosaic of red barns, a trail of low wooden fences, bold against the white snow that currently covers the pastures. Heritage breed chickens roam where they will, producing eggs in shades of blue, pink, green, and beige. I was introduced to Luci the dairy cow, the only dairy cow on the farm and apparently a bit of a diva for it. (I also met Apple, poor Apple, Luci’s somewhat abused sidekick; it’s a love-hate relationship between the two of them.) A sea of sheep spreads across a field, guarded by a pair of Italian herding dogs, both animal’s coats the white of snow.

The farmers who operate Kinderhook are impossibly friendly, gracious hosts. After touring us around the farm, we were invited into the kitchen for warm cookies, milk (courtesy of Luci, I cannot begin to tell you how tasty this milk is), and grilled cheese sandwiches. The kitchen’s bay windows look out past the barns and across the fields, over small hills dotted with trees that rise and fall as far as the eye can see.

If it feels like I am romanticizing this farm, I’m sorry, but it’s no exaggeration. It was bucolically beautiful, beautifully bucolic, and the animals Disney-esque in their loveliness. The clean and quiet air proved an invigorating change from the city. Read more »

The Roaming Kitchen

Original Recipes and Culinary Yarns

Make Ahead