food

Yellow Tomato Gazpacho

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They had beautiful golden yellow tomatoes at the farmer’s market yesterday and I went a little crazy. There’s nothing like the smell of a real, grown-in-the-earth tomato. It brings back childhood memories of going out to the garden to pick tomatoes for supper, standing barefoot in the rough ground, and brushing the dirt off a sun-warmed tomato to breathe in that pungent tomato smell. The scent of a tomato is unique – it reminds me of geraniums, or maybe rosemary, […]

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This is a recipe of my mother’s, which is lightning fast in the assembling, though slow in the cooking.
summer

Campfire Beans With Bacon

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This is a recipe of my mother’s, which is lightning fast in the assembling, though slow in the cooking. I added a lot of bacon, to make it more substantial. I like it for a campout because it can be made ahead of time as a casserole and then heated on the campfire before serving.   There’s something classic and funny, in a Blazing Saddles kind of way, about sitting around a campfire eating pork and beans. Campfire Baked Beans with […]

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It can be served cold or at room temperature, so it’s a perfect summer buffet salad – and it’s gluten free!
summer

MELON, CUCUMBER AND FETA SALAD

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I saw a version of this recipe in a British magazine and was so taken with how beautiful it looked that I had to try it. We don’t have the same kinds of melons available here, so it’s a bit different from the original – but it’s also more interesting than the standard watermelon/feta/cucumber combination. And the pistachios give it such a nice pop of crunchy flavor! This salad was a huge hit (I could tell because the moment it […]

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Grilled purple potato salad
summer

Grilled Purple Potato Salad with Cilantro Pesto

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Potatoes may not be the first thing on your list to throw on a grill, but potatoes and grills belong together.   This is just the kind of salad I would have wanted for a White House Congressional Picnic menu: it’s colorful, unusual (purple basil, purple potatoes, almonds, cucumbers, and cilantro pesto), and it doesn’t have any ingredients that would spoil as it sits on a buffet in the brutal Washington heat. The annual Congressional Picnic is an enormous outdoor party […]

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A Home cooked Valentine's Day Dinner
food

7 Hacks for a Home-Cooked Romantic Valentine’s Day Dinner

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Want to make an awe-inspiring home-cooked dinner for two that will leave your Valentine reeling with delight? This meal is so fast and easy that even if you usually use your oven to store shoes and your refrigerator as a beer locker, you can still put this all together with minimum of time, effort and kitchen equipment. The trick is to take shortcuts that don’t diminish taste, put a personal twist on basic dishes to impress your date with your […]

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