Tom Colicchio once said something along the lines of “We have blind spots when it comes to our childhood comfort foods.” This is so true. I didn’t realize this until I was first living with my husband. I had some free time and I decided to whip up dinner for the two of us. It was a cold, cloudy day so, naturally, I wanted to make something hearty and comforting. So, I turned to a childhood recipe and proudly served the results to him when he got home from work. Continue reading
food
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Hi kids. I wanted to post an update on yesterday’s post since many of you had very good questions that were answered in the comments, making them hard to find. So, I’ll resummarize things here: Continue reading
You might be living in a desert right now and not even know it. A food desert that is. In communities across the US there are wide swaths that are classified by the US Department of Agriculture as being barren wastelands when it comes to food. Thankfully there is an interactive map to help people determine where these sandy regions are located. Continue reading
The phrase “cooking on a budget” helps to sell a gazillion magazines a year. But do you know what? Those “cooking on a budget” magazines are a contradiction. Those magazines at the checkout are ridiculously expensive. So, if you can afford to buy a six dollar magazine about “cooking on a budget” than you’re not really on a budget. The rest of us know that the six dollars could buy such glamorous items as a small 4-roll package of toilet paper and ½ pound of swiss cheese. So, I want to amend that phrase to simply “cooking and still being able to afford a 4.99 bottle of wine to go with dinner.” (From here on out that will just be referred to as, “casbataa4bowtgwd.”) Continue reading
Earlier in the week when it was gray and rainy I made a batch of chicken curry soup. It was the perfect meal for an early fall day, but soup needs bread – and sometimes you can’t just don’t have time to play around with yeast. So I made an old stand by, quick beer bread. You can make this bread with a lot of interchangeable ingredients including (but not limited to) dill and cheddar, corn and chipotle cheese, or (to go with a spicy curry) monterey jack and scallions. Continue reading
Food. Cook books. Recipes. Appliances. Restaurants. Hairy celebrity chefs. Dirty celebrity chefs who end up in the blind gossip pages a little too often. All of these things end up in the pages of Crasstalk all the time. But what single item, book, machine, cool cafe, classy bar, well-turned calf or succulent breast is your absolute favourite?
Saying “chocolate” is too easy, so say something else. Continue reading
New York City has pretty much everything a modern consumer could possibly want, and you can get almost all of delivered right to your apartment. However, you can’t get everything in the city. Fresh air, quiet, and nature are in short supply. Fortunately, you can get all of those things, plus delicious fruit and gorgeous produce only an hour and a half from New York City at Fishkill Farms in East Fishkill. Continue reading
This is a recipe for banh xeo, aka sizzling Saigon pancakes. The story is about how we had them in Vietnam on our trip there earlier this year. Continue reading
I used to be a pretty big fan of Zatarin’s Jambalaya. I thought it was easy to make, and was pretty tasty. However, the last time I made it I found it very salty, and I resolved to make jambalaya from scratch. Continue reading