Cherry Chocolate-Chip Ice Cream (Sandwiches)

I would like to take a minute to talk about the Frenchman’s familial home. Since we just returned from a sojourn there, now seems an appropriate time.

The home is actually three small houses, which form a periphery around a bean-shaped swimming pool and a terrace. The property is bombastic with vines and flowers, their geneses and medicinal qualities neatly labeled on slate squares. A closed well is painted the baby blue of the region. In warm weather, lunch and dinner are verbose, lingering affairs set at the colorfully-laid terrace table, protected from sun and drizzle by a canopy of fanning grape leaves. Read more »

Cold Sirloin Sesame Noodles

I’ve developed an unfortunate habit. It’s quite embarrassing, really, but still I persist:

I want your bones. All of them. The bigger the better. I will probably ask for yours in public. Please don’t try to fight it.

Perhaps I should explain.

In the last few months, I’ve formed a tiny obsession with homemade stocks. The understanding that bones + water + vegetables + herbs + time = liquid splendor has been revelatory. I don’t fuss over details: I use the bones, herbs and vegetables I have on hand. This way, each batch is slightly different, but always wonderful. I freeze the results in ice cube trays, and use what I need for soups, pan sauces, risotto, rice. Good stock gives new life to vegetables, mashed potatoes and leftovers alike. Read more »

Watermelon Ginger Cooler

It’s summertime, which of course means it’s time to whip up some refreshing drafts. Here’s how I approach my cocktailage:

1. Use ingredients that that are, themselves, inherently restorative under wilting conditions.*
2. Keep it simple. Try to keep your concoctions to five ingredients or less.
3. Locate your fine self a cabana/pool/palm-draped hammock.** Relax. Imbibe. Read more »

Lamb and Saffron Rice with Spring Vegetables

Rice and me, we aren’t quite simpatico.

For starters, I didn’t grow up eating it; the starch of choice in my parent’s house was pasta. Personally, I have an ongoing love affair with potatoes of all stripes. I was, at best, ambivalent about the grain, until I got to culinary school.

In French culinary school, you are taught to make rice the old-fashioned way: in a pan, covered with a perfect wheel of parchment paper. (My “wheels” looked more like drunk hexagons, but I digress.) Read more »

Radish and Green Gem Couscous

As summertime approaches, I’m thinking more and more about deviating from my standard winter plate paradigm: protein, veg, veg. (That second veg is often a potato in some form, but I digress.) Like most people, I tend to reach for lighter options when it’s warm outside, and this dovetails nicely with the lovely herbs and vegetables available at the market these days.

I’m currently entertaining an enduring knackering for little green gems in all forms–favas beans, English peas, snap peas, etc. I’m also eating radishes with almost every meal; as a sliver of color and bite in salads, stirred into scrambled eggs and mellowed by heat, or simply with butter and flaky salt on hot toast. Combine this with my relatively new discovery of Israeli (or pearl) couscous, and you have the inspiration for this recipe. Read more »

Strawberry Popsicles

Some of you may have noticed a bit of a lapse in recipe posting as of late. This is due to the fact that I am about to graduate from my Master’s program (exciting), and my attentions have been thusly diverted with things like terrifying thesis-readings, employment searches and retrieving my cap and gown (brown velvet trim, really?).

While I don’t have time to blather on as I usually do before a recipe, I wanted to post something regardless. Here are the essentials: Read more »

Spring Soup

After months and months of the same old, same old at the market—the same ruddy sweet potatoes, the same crinkled white onions—these days it’s flush with new gems all the time, and I am unapologetically thrilled about it. Last week I collected peach blossom branches (note: peach blossom branches do not fit into bicycle baskets; you will look clumsy all the way home), and this week I scooped up bundles of perfumed lilacs, to fill every available ledge of my apartment.

Broccolini arrived this week, which I plan to boil in salty water until it just yields, and then toss lovingly with olive oil and Pecorino. There are a multitude of baby lettuces to consider, not to mention the asparagus I will barely roast and toss with lemon juice or egg yolk. And what about radishes? They should be sliced thinly and strewn across buttery toast, sprinkled with sea salt…. It’s a good time to be a cook. Read more »

All About Crêpes

While crêperies originated in Brittany, that northwestern region of France famed for its rain and a slew of lovely edibles, they can now be found all over. If you must know, my very favorite crêperie is Le Bain des Fleurs; a family operation perched on a windy boardwalk in a town called Chatelaillon. What can I say? I am a fool for the multi-tonal blue and gray interior, which mirrors the sea. The stellar crêpes and affable service don’t hurt either.

A crêperie’s menu is typically split into two equal halves: crêpes salées (which are made with buckwheat flour and filled with savory fixings) and crêpes sucrées (made with white flour and eaten for dessert). You should get one of each. To drink, it is appropriate to order hard cider served in ceramic bowls, because it is traditional and because it tastes very good. Trust me on this. Read more »