Last week with our recipe for the Syrian dip muhamarra, we embarked on a perilous culinary adventure: trying to recreate authentic versions of classic Middle Eastern dishes. Why perilous? Well, my grandmother and grandfather couldn’t, between the two of them,…
Winter cooking is often pantry cooking. When the rain is coming down at a 45° angle, the last thing most of us want to do is brave the elements to make a grocery run. It’s handy to have a stash…
Tomatoes are still, mercifully, quite readily available. Though we hate to think about it, this won’t always be the case. In just a few short weeks, tomatoes—at least the good, locally grown varieties—will be gone on winter hiatus. It always…
Quinoa isn’t just for Passover anymore. Revered by the Incas as sacred, quinoa looks like a grain but is actually a plant related to beets, chard, and spinach. Its tiny seeds cook up into fluffy, nutty goodness in fifteen minutes,…
As you may recall, we recently delved into the wonderful world of cheese-making. And when we did, we told you to save up all that leftover whey, as we’d be featuring it in a recipe sometime soon. Soon, dear cooks…
What exactly does ricotta have to do with Sukkot? After all, Shavuot is the holiday that features dairy so prominently. In part it’s a question of ecology: meat is a high-impact food, and if we can all cut down a…
Many of us are rushing around today, crossing things off lists though simultaneously putting new ones on, trying to get ready for Rosh Hashanah. It’s a big food holiday – bigger than most, even – and most of us will…
It’s about this time of year that the air starts to change. Evenings cool off and breezes pick up. Put another way: it is a time to put some food by, as the old phrase goes, the season for trying…
There is something so profoundly compelling about a dish named buckle. Just think of it: buttery golden batter, giving way – buckling – under the weight of juicy, jammy, slightly caramelized hunks of fruit. A buckle is more exuberant than…
Zucchini flowers, or squash blossoms (for culinary purposes these are interchangeable), are one of those off-the-supermarket-beaten-path ingredients you tend to find only at farmers’ markets or fancy restaurants. (Or Italy, though that doesn’t really help most of us all that…