Vegetables

  I know. It’s a puppy. I can’t seem to take a decent photo of the risotto dish I want to share with you, so I’m posting a photo of a puppy. Everyone loves a puppy photo. Don’t get me wrong, the risotto is quite…

    Tender artichoke hearts. Lemon. Grape tomatoes. Herbs galore. Yum. A friend served this as the main course at a dinner party I was fortunate to attend a few years ago. She confided that the recipe came from a Jamie Oliver book, The Naked…

To my delight, I’ve realized that I have some holes in my cookbook collection. My Middle Eastern cookbook shelf, in particular, is a little thin. I say “to my delight” because, believe me, I welcome any excuse to buy new cookbooks. Picture me with a…

  You know how you put stuff off? Me, too. I don’t usually sing my own praises but I’m not shy about saying that I excel (I mean really excel) as a procrastinator. In fact, I’m the Serena Williams of procrastination. So, today I decided…

      These days many food sites exhort us to “eat the rainbow”–a colorful visual cue to remind us of the importance of incorporating a variety of nutrients into our daily diets.  Good advice. I know I need the nudge. Here is a recipe for…

I love bread pudding. It is my idea of a soothing comfort food–right up there alongside refried beans and candy corn. That said, I guess it’s pretty clear that carbs whisper sweet nothings in my ear when the pressure’s on in my life . While…

  My friend Sarah recently went to lunch at the new Farmhouse Restaurant at Roger’s Gardens in Newport Beach. She came home raving about the food. The cauliflower steaks with chimichuri sauce particularly impressed her. I decided to see if I could recreate the dish…

  Today, April 3rd, is National Find a Rainbow Day. Woo-hoo!  Let’s party!  I’ll bring the hors d’oeuvres. National Find a Rainbow Day is a day to either follow your whimsy and go looking for a rainbow, or, failing that, to look for beauty and hope…

I often look to David Tanis’ food column for inspired food ideas. He was a lead chef for more than thirty years at Berkeley’s legendary Chez Panisse. That credential alone positions him in the pantheon of culinary immortals. Since leaving Chez Panisse in 2011, Tanis has written a…

  You know how, when you aren’t exactly sure you want to do something,  you put it off—turning instead to “must do” projects like sorting the dog’s toys by size and color? This week I’ve been nagged by the feeling that I needed to make…