From the monthly archives:

June 2010

Zucchini “tagliatelle”

27 June 2010

Last night at dinner I had a concoction called a “crab ‘cappuccino.’ ” When food with quotation marks goes wrong, I think, it can go very wrong. But the sense of whimsy often makes it worth the risk. And my crab “cappuccino” was delicious. It had a lovely kind of southeast Asian flair, including lime, […]

3 comments

Black cod with miso

21 June 2010

Eating alone can be a glory or a drag. Shoveling things out of a bowl with a spoon to your mouth in front of your favorite television program; standing next to the refrigerator with a plate in one hand and telephone wedged on the other shoulder; sitting quietly at your dining table with a candle […]

3 comments

Basil panna cotta, strawberry lime compote

18 June 2010

I’m one of those people who orders dessert when no one else wants any. People don’t order dessert, I think, because they’re ready to leave their present company, or because they prefer to enjoy their sweets in solitude. And I guess some people don’t actually want it. I don’t know whether these insights are right or […]

1 comment

Dinner on the cheap, with morels + cream

14 June 2010

I bought a small box of morel mushrooms over the weekend for I won’t say how much, and no, it wasn’t very cheap. But the morels were on sale, which may have been because the season will be ending soon. And I just love morels. Don’t you? They’re one of springtime’s perfect foods, sautéed with […]

2 comments

Penne with favas, oil-cured olives, pecorino

10 June 2010

Charles and I ordered fava beans in Portugal two years ago, and we received a plate of them. There was a little dribble of very pungent olive oil on top, along with a few bits of hacked up raw garlic on the side. We had rented a car and driven up a mountainside on the […]

2 comments

Chicken + chickpea tagine

4 June 2010

It’s not summer. It’s not summer. It’s not summer. I can’t hear you; it’s not summer. Thermometer, I can’t see you! It is not summer. It isn’t summer for another several weeks, I know, but by way of a preemptive confession: Unless there is sand and ocean, I hate hot weather. I grew up in […]

1 comment

Roast asparagus with white miso

1 June 2010

William Faulkner is said to have once remarked that he preferred to write about women in lieu of men in his novels. I think women are marvelous, he said, and they are wonderful, and I know very little about them. I think that Japanese food is marvelous and that it’s wonderful. I know very little […]

4 comments