Category: all
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Whole Slow-Roasted Carrots with Thyme & Secret Shame
At the family bbq, our kids were nosing around the yard, digging in the dirt and becoming fast friends as kids under ten do. This writer and I stood around as writers do, chit-chatting until we feel enough time has passed to discuss work. Generally the conversations go something like this: Writer 1: So…what’re you… Read more
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Maple-Polenta Southern Biscuits & Biscuits & Cuddling (Vegan Option, too!)
Confession: I am not southern. I am not even semi-southern. But I harbor deep fantasies about being whisked away and made to eat cheese grits, collard greens, and biscuits. In fact, last night I ate an entire bunch of collard greens. ON my own. I *might* have had to sleep in the attic due to… Read more
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Black Olive and Caper Tapenade & Proportional Happiness
When I go to Mexico to visit my old friend, Cristina, I like to help her milk goats, eat the cheese she makes from those goats, and wander into the market to buy hand-made blue gorditas and cactus for salad. But what I really love is buying spoons. They are made locally, don’t cost much,… Read more
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Frozen Banana Pops & My Slutty Past
I used to get around a little. One time here, another there. Always the dream of what the next guy could do, how he could fulfill my desires. No, not that way! I was…a hair slut. My friend, Jen, was a jean whore. She’d constantly covet the jeans I wore, or the jeans on that… Read more
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Creamy Fennel, Garlic, Onion & Potato Soup & Spinning My Wheels & Free Diapers
When was spinning a craze? I remember my older brother converting to the religion of spin class somewhere in the late 90s…but like many things from that time period, I missed them. My first child was born in 1999. Roughly translated, this means my husband and I ARE STILL WATCHING THE WEST WING. Missed it… Read more
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Summer Squash Ribbon Salad with Lemon-Dill Vinaigrette (Raw) & My Vegan Dog
Perhaps you’re familiar with Newfoundlands as a breed. Maybe you read Peter Pan (in the original book, Nana is a Newfie, not a Saint). My dog, Atticus, is, for lack of a better ford, a beast. He is giant, hairy, drools, has huge teeth, paws that can take out a grown man’s eye (though he’d… Read more
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Cottage Blueberry Crumb Cake & Broken Hearts
My 12-year-old holds a heart in his hands. “Do you like the blue?” he asks. We’re in Venice, a place known for glass beads and tiny fragile animals. I nod. Jamie has always associated me with blue as he knows it’s my favorite color. “Who is the necklace for?” Jamie’s dad asks him and Jamie… Read more
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Breadcrumb Flounder & Learning to Cook
“How do you roast a chicken?” my housemate asked. We were living in a small house on the outskirts of Oxford, England, commuting to tutorials by bike or foot or, in my case, used Vespa. I had an enormous helmet that made me look like a misshapen bee or person from the future and yet… Read more
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Italian Plum Tart (Crostata alla Confettura di Prugne) & Finding Treasures
This is a classic southern Italian dessert, though my favorite time to eat this is in the morning. I especially like the crisp pastry and the tart plum when we’re down to the last few slices and the very last one is a bit stale, and thus crunchy and I can peck at the crumbs… Read more
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Cheese & One Reason I Miss Italy
This is just the cheese platter I would serve each day at lunch… Did I mention that in the (lost) green bag was an entire wheel of cheese? Read more
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Addis (Red Lentils with Tomatoes) & Old Haunts
I’ve loved some restaurants in my life. Some remain, some have since closed, turned over into other eateries or morphed into cell phone stores. I look back on these places the way one might look back on an old flame. Oh, tiny little place no one knew about in the then-dodgy part of London with… Read more
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Super Sticky Thai Chicken Wings & Pieces of String
So there’s this old New England tale – the kind that gets passed along from one old fisherman to another, then handed down to me when I worked on boats and cooked on a wood stove or a diesel one, up at 4am and in bed at 11pm (the nights that prepared me well for… Read more
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Zucchini Ribbons with Velvet Onions & The Mystery of the Green Bag
Upon our return from Italy last night we realized a few things: we are tired, which is silly considering we relaxed very hard while there…I’m thinking this had something to do with 19 hour travel day with five kids, two long-haul flights, time changes, system breakdown of in-flight entertainment, the airline somehow having us down… Read more
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Stone Fruit Crumble with Shortbread Topping & The Perfect Chair
For my father’s birthday, he asked for a fruit dessert. This is partly because he has always loved tarte tatin and other sugared fruits but also because he knows I like to cook with what’s available. Right now, we have cherries, small green sour plums that shine bright as limes when rubbed on your shirt… Read more
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Zucchini Chocolate Chip Loaf, Parmesan Zucchini & A Vegetable that Requires Cooking
This is what is known in the food industry as a shitload of zucchini. Oh, it’s not that much you say? This is just from this morning. NOT this afternoon. NOT tomorrow. I have to start this post by stating a few facts: I am in Italy at my dad’s house (read: not on the… Read more