The taste of a particular food can evoke potent memories, bringing back sounds and smells, and calling up a moment in the past as if we’d never moved on from there. If I walk into a bakery and smell rye bread baking, it’s like being transported to my grandmother’s kitchen, where I used to kneel at the oven window, watching the little rye buns bake and counting the minutes until they were done. She always put coarse salt and caraway […]
It’s a well-established fact that I’m a big fan of Parks and Recreation, and I’ve watched this last (really good) season with a sense of impending loss. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a small Midwestern town myself and recognize an uncomfortably large number of the characters as people I know, or maybe it’s Ron Swanson’s libertarian instincts that appeal to me more than I can say, even while I’m laughing at them, but either way, I already miss […]
Have you ever opened your refrigerator to make a sandwich, looked dully at the contents, closed it again, opened it, closed it – and found that the cycle just went on and on? Nothing looks appealing. It’s the same old stuff all the time: turkey, ham, some bland cheese. No wonder we can’t find anything to eat – we’re in a rut! So I came up with three sandwiches to get excited about: a toasted peanut butter and jelly (the […]
Tomorrow is the Chinese New Year, and the beginning of the Year of the Goat. I asked my friend Nelly Salvacion, who worked as a chef in Hong Kong for four years, to teach me how to make Dragon Fish. Dragon Fish is a symbol of prosperity, a whole fish deep fried and served with the head pointed toward the guest of honor. The cheeks are considered the most delicate part of the fish. The Chinese word for fish, yu, […]
YAY! A snow day! That raises two questions if you’ve got kids: what are they going to do all day, and what are you going to feed them, knowing you probably can’t get to a grocery store and will need to cook from the staples in your kitchen? The first question can be the answer to the second: let your kids participate in the cooking as a way to keep them busy while teaching them cooking skills they’ll always be […]
