When I come across something completely new in a cookbook, I get absolutely giddy, especially when it’s not part of an exotic cuisine. Speidie sauce is all-American or, at least, a significant part of upstate New York summer barbecues. During the pandemic, my daughter and husband escaped to a resort on Long Island over the
The recipe comes from the blog Living the Gourmet. The founder of this blog is Catherine Cappiello Pappas, but two other contributors include her son and daughter. I’ve made the salsa once before, and wanted to make it for the blog so I can share the recipe. I was a bit skeptical at first because
My first experience with yeast was not using it, even though I was supposed to. I’d followed a recipe in the Betty Crocker Boys and Girls cookbook, except not really. It was my thing to do when I was 11-12 years old, to get up early on Sundays and bake some kind of coffee cake.
Years ago, while eating lunch at a restaurant with my older daughter and her husband, my son-in-law nearly fainted when I ordered ranch dressing for my salad. Knowing my snobbiness towards what I would call “American” foods, like Velveeta, he “threatened” kiddingly that he was going to “tell people!” Yes, I ordered ranch dressing for
The combination of beets and potatoes have been a favorite ever since I had a creamy potato salad with beets in the Cayman Islands. I recreated this salad in a post last year. This gratin shows off beets and potatoes both, baked in cream with cheese and a little rosemary. I think this would be
La Boîte is a New York City spice store owned by Israeli-born Lior Lev Sercarz. I own one of his books called The Spice Companion, and wrote about it in this post. To say this man is passionate about spices in an understatement. His bio is fascinating. There is a website for the store, called
Back in May when my strawberry plants were thriving, I thought about what to do with the berries, besides gorge on them! (And share.) There’s nothing quite like that just-ripened strawberry, picked from its plant. Then I remembered a milk shake my mother made, maybe in 1968 or 1969. We lived on Long Island, New
Let’s face it, they’re not pretty. They look like huge, well, tongues. So just don’t think about it being a tongue. Think of it as a culinary delicacy. Tongue is soft, tender, and lean, with a unique texture. With very little work, you can turn this piece of cow into a fabulous “cold cut” for
The New York City restaurant, Le Bernardin, a seafood restaurant, is constantly on top of the world’s ten best restaurant lists. In May of 2021, the chef-owner Eric Ripert was proud to advertise his long-standing 3 Michelin star rating. In 2010, when my daughter went to New York City for an interview, I volunteered to
When I first made biryani a million years ago, or so it seems, it was a fun dish for me because it was a perfect vehicle for leftovers – leftover rice, leftover chicken, even a leftover curry. But one can also make it purposefully from scratch, creating a custom version of what you like. Biryani