recipes

Aymeric’s Spicy Chicken Legs

This recipe comes from my old friend, Nelly Salvacion. Her seven-year-old grandson, Aymeric, is a bit of a picky eater, so she invented this recipe for yogurt dipped chicken legs. Now it’s his all-time favorite food. Don’t be fooled by the yogurt in the recipe – there are lots of speecy, spicy ingredients in these legs – and be sure to make the mango cucumber salsa that goes with it. It’s heaven. I added a couple of chicken breasts just […]

food

Cornbread Cake

Cornbread is as American as it comes, and there must be thousands of family recipes out there that are passed down from one generation to the next. When I was growing up, cornbread was a savory food, served as muffins or in corn cob-shaped segments out of an old iron mold. I believe that the best cornbread comes out of an iron pan, whatever it’s shape, and this recipe is particularly good because it’s so versatile – moist as the […]

recipes

Lobster Kebabs

Are you ready to kick off the first long weekend of summer with drinks al fresco and beachside snacks? These lobster kebabs are a clambake on a stick – all the flavors of a beach picnic, grilled to perfection and lashed with melted butter. This isn’t so much a recipe as a method of assembly; some of the ingredients need to be cooked first, skewered, and then dropped on the grill just long enough for grill marks to form. It’s […]

food

Asparagus and New Potato Soup

ASPARAGUS AND NEW POTATO SOUP When I hear the words “potato soup,” I think of something heavy, white, and not very appealing. This is potato soup for the way we eat now – light, bright, and full of the flavors of the season. It’s more like a broth with vegetables than a soup, and would make an elegant first course at a special dinner, or a lunch treat with a crusty multigrain roll and a green salad. It reminds me […]

food

Roasted Spring Vegetables

ROASTED SPRING VEGETABLES I love this time of year for it’s newness: baby birds, tender shoots of green leaves everywhere, and all the tiny spring vegetables that are bursting with flavor and full of life-giving nutrients. Suddenly there are little new potatoes, so firm and sweet, baby peas and fava beans, young carrots and fresh spring thyme – what could be better on an Easter Sunday buffet, lined up invitingly next to a honeyed ham and a big plate of […]