Here’s our round-up of favorite Thanksgiving recipes, along with a few notated improvisations we’ve done here and there; you could easily forge a perfect menu from them. And since we view recipes as rough formulas and idea generators, we encourage your to take them in whatever direction you want.
Read Moreroast turkey strategies: pre-salting vs wet-brining
Here are my two favorite strategies for producing a perfect roast turkey: dry salting and wet-brining.
Read Morecultivating gardens real and imaginary
Rooftop gardens are still blooming in cities everywhere. No matter how small or large our gardens, or how large or small we gardeners, we all share a farmer’s joys and vicissitudes, so delightfully illlustrated in this New Yorker cover by Ivan Brunetti entitled “Urban Bliss”. Poet Marianne Moore observed that poetry cultivates “imaginary gardens with real toads…
Read More4th of July pt 2: paella’s improvisational possibilities
Paella is a dish of great possibility, without rigid constraints. It was originally created by workers in the orange groves of Valencia with the elements they had on hand, commonly duck, rabbit and snails. Seafood paellas are a fairly recent adaptation, although they are the most popular. The only constants in paella are the rice,…
Read More4th of july pt 1: grill rigs + open-fire paella improvs
Every 4th of July, my friend Timothy Chegwidden cooks two huge paellas, Spain’s famous rice dish, for a gathering of friends and their children. Tim makes his paella as they REALLY do in Spain, outdoors over a wood fire — the slight hint of smoke is essential to its flavor — a Spanish-style barbeque that makes…
Read Moresalty-sweet chocolate chip cookie for easter and…
I met New York City Baker Katherine Yang at a book party for Canal House Cooks Every Day, one of our favorite cookbooks. Co-author Christopher Hirscheimer described Katherine as having created one of the best chocolate chip cookies EVER: crisp, at once salty and sweet. Katherine is the creator of Gigi Blue a by-order seriously bakery, where…
Read Morekitchen reno: what stove will really make you happy?
Our friends Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton, creators of the wonderful Canal House cookbook series, have a friend in the appliance business who keeps offering to get them a big new stove for their kitchen studio. NO, they keep saying, We love our little side-by-side stoves! Every great dish Melissa and Christopher come up with…
Read More‘improvised life’s’ favorite last-minute thanksgiving recipes
For the past couple of days, we’ve been getting calls from friends asking for recommendations for the Thanksgiving meal: the best way to cook the turkey, what side dishes, what to drink. So for all our readers who may still be at odds with what they are going to make tomorrow, here’s our round-up of…
Read Morekraft paper table “cloths” and place settings
Inspired by designer Pamela Hovland‘s hand-drawn place settings, we’ve just ordered a 48″ x 200′ roll of kraft paper ($26!) for the holidays. Pamela unrolls a long swath of paper to act as a tablecloth, then draws each persons place setting, with their name, right on it (taking care of seating arrangements in one fell swoop).…
Read Moregarden of delights: béquet montana caramels
A while after we posted about Laura Handler’s lovely Montana cabin, and after many emails back and forth in which we discovered we lived in the same neighborhood in New York, and many other affinities, we received a package in the mail. With it came a note: “Just another worlds-colliding-thing from here that I hope…
Read Moresummer house gift: moderne spoon-straws
Spoon straws are metal straws that have a spoon bowl attached, so you can use them to both stir and sip a cocktail, ice tea or ice cream floats and shakes. Although we’ve collected them over the years at flea markets, we had no idea that we could buy new one a set of 12 spoon straws…
Read Morecollective learning and teaching in brooklyn and beyond
We’ve written before about the Fixer’s Collective, a group of improvisational fixers and menders based in Brooklyn, NY as well as Chris Hackett and the Madagascar Institute, who are devoted to facilitating “out there” creations – especially flamethrowers – for just about anyone who shows up. But lately we’ve been hearing about a number of similar projects…
Read Morebook giveaway: fridge pickles via ‘hip girls guide’…
Soon summer will be here, bringing with it a crop of cucumbers (and countless other vegetables) just waiting to be pickled. But for those who are intimidated by the process of water-bath canning for shelf storage (or who just want a crunchy fresh pickle!) there is an easy solution: spices, water, vinegar, salt, and two…
Read Moreoutstanding in the field (true farm to table)
We’ve been so impressed with Jim Denevan’s amazing sand and snow creations, that we forgot he’s also is the mastermind of a fantastic traveling food project. Outstanding in the Field is a “roving culinary adventure” meant to connect people to the land where their food originates and the people who work hard to produce it.…
Read Morebrown sugar butter cookies with thyme-rosemary-lavender salt
Just before Christmas, I posted my best-ever butter cookie recipe: Ethereal Brown Sugar Butter Cookies, along with many variations. The versatile cookie dough recently inspired yet another improvisation on the basic theme. Actually, it’s an improvisation on my Tuscan Herb Salt Recipe, that I then used on the butter cookies, to make a double-improvisation: Brown…
Read Morethe virtues of late gifts and celebrations (+ a perfect gift)
We’ve been so busy, we haven’t given all the gifts we’ve had in mind to give to friends and family. Our fridge is still stockpiled with mason jars of Prunes in Armagnac we plan to give friends we meet up with in the next few weeks. And our favorite gift for this year, the extraordinary…
Read MoreKeeping Holiday Gift-giving ‘Real’: Our 12 Fave Gifts To Give
Keeping perspective during the holiday season’s flurry of buying can be difficult. While gift-giving is a lovely tradition, so many of us get caught up in the “keeping up with the Joneses”-style of shopping: buying the newest, neatest toy/appliance/Apple product to keep pace with our consumption-centric world. The shopping-cynic in us was thus delighted by…
Read MoreGiant Cheese Popover-Pancake (Eggy, Chewy, Crispy, swell!) + a Sweet Lemon-scented Version
We were poking around food editor and writer Jane Lear‘s website, when we came across a trove of great articles, including one of her pieces for Gourmet Magazine, where she was its Senior Articles Editor for many years. Called Transformers, the premise is that with 3 eggs and two lemons on hand, you can make…
Read Moresally on ‘splendid table’ + recipe: sugar snaps with evo oil and shaved parmigiano
This weekend, Sally will be on public radio’s Splendid Table talking to Lynne Rosetto Kasper about her short list of favorite blogs and why she likes them. You can stream the interview or find out times it will air in area here. You’ll also find Sally’s recipe for Sugar Snaps with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Shaved…
Read Morehow to make ramp or spring onion butter (recipe)
It is high season for ramps, the pungent wild leeks that grow throughout the Appalachian and Catskill mountains. Ellen Silverman sent us photos of the sublime ramp butter she was given by a friend, with an utterly simple recipe that will keep you in ramp heaven for days. She wrote this in her email: “Cyd…
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