Nine of us sat around the table Sunday night, tired and hungry, as the husbands heaped generous portions of chicken parmesan and sausage lasagna onto their plates and thanked cooking with friends. It was two days of fantastic skiing in the Catskills, as we relaxed around the table, filling our ...
Kitchen Chronicles
Indian Cooking Lesson
When my friend Preeti recently gave me a silver container full of cardamom pods, mustard seed, cinnamon, cloves, coriander and cumin, and an invitation to teach me Indian cooking, I was thrilled. This past weekend, the two of us planned a family dinner with our husbands and combined four kids. On ...
Cooking with Friends (in rollers)
Yes, that’s me pictured in hot rollers by the stove with a friend. Looks like a snap shot from the 1950’s, right? Well, there’s actually a cute story behind it (at least I think so!). You see, Lynn and I have known each other for years and I’ve always thought she had the best hair! We’ve grown ...
A Conversation with Suzan Colón
We are thrilled to share our interview with Suzan Colón, author of Cherries in Winter. In your new book, Cherries in Winter, you describe so well the intermingling aromas of Irish and German immigrant cooking in the tenement housing of New York. For us, we envision open doors to kitchens, where ...
Hop on the Bread Baking Wagon
Mix three cups flour, 1 ¼ teaspoons salt, ¼ teaspoon active yeast and 1 and ½ cups cold water together in a bowl. Cover the bowl and forget about it for 12, 18 or even 24 hours. We’ll come back to it later. (Adapted from Jim Lahey’s book “My Bread.”) Sometimes a nudge from a friend is all it ...
Finding Your Recipes
A few days before a recent big holiday we'd be sharing with friends, we decided on the menu based on the collective traditions of two families. We brought to the table our various Jewish, Catholic, Quaker, Unitarian, East Coast, West Coast, Midwestern and New England sensibilities from growing up, ...
Desserts for the New Year
Last Wednesday, Debbie and I enjoyed our annual Day-before-New-Year’s Eve-dessert- making- session. Although we part ways for the last night of the year, making our desserts together is our New Year’s celebration as friends. It’s a rewarding way to make some of our gourmet meals in advance. We’ve ...
Food Resolutions
It's the last day of the year, and not surprisingly, some of my resolutions involve food! That is, teaching and learning about cooking and food. The food journey is never over! Here are a few things I want to do: Teaching: I'll help a friend get over her fear of cooking fish. And, I'm planning ...
Holiday Reflections
The holiday season comes and goes every year the same way for me. It barrels in, full force and then, as quickly as it came, leaves. Empty boxes, broken cookies, falling gingerbread houses, fragments of leftover holiday meals, happy memories and exhausted children all left in its wake. To ...
Snow Food
As my kids and I make a Pear Crisp for tonight's dessert and I watch the snow fall outside, I am reminded of three wonderful times when snow played a part in unexpected sharing food with friends. Most recently, two weeks ago, we had a blizzard here in Madison, and school was cancelled. Our ...