Food, Photography and Bons Mots
Happy Year of the Pig. I’m a bit late cooking for Chinese New Year. Life got in the way. Here is a wonderful stir fry served with noodles that I’m pretty sure you will enjoy. No pigs here, though, just a great melange of…
My French neighbor, Nicole, loves Sweet Juliet. When she visits, she often greets Juliet with an affectionate mon petit chou. (Translated, that means “my little cabbage.”) Juliet has that effect on people. Absolute strangers and friends alike shower her with kind words and sweet kisses.…
I’m loving this dish. Couscous has long been a staple food in North Africa’s Maghreb but it has become popular around the world in recent years. I remember discovering it on a long-ago trip to startlingly-beautiful and exasperatingly-strident Morocco. Most of us here in the…
Just in time for Valentine’s Day. Roses. These sweet little roses are made with apples, puff pastry, a wee bit of apricot jam and a smidge of creativity. Trust me. You can do this. Despite looking intricate, these apple roses are a cinch to make…
You’ll want to treat yourself to this one! It’s decadently delicious. While applesauce cake has been around in America since colonial times, it became especially popular during WWI. In fact, it was considered downright patriotic to eat applesauce cake during the war. By foregoing the…
OK. It’s no polar vortex, but it is cold, dark and rainy here in SoCal—window-rattling thunder, too. My nerves are noticeably jangled. Sweet Juliet, with plaintive break-your-heart “Mom: Make it stop” eyes, is hiding among the folds of her favorite blanket. No question. We’re quite…
How do you define elegance? Audrey Hepburn? That exquisite little black dress at Nordstrom’s? Dinner at The French Laundry? Camilla Parker Bowles? (OK. Just kidding about that last one.) It may be time to revisit your definition and add this delightful cookie to…
John F. Kennedy famously remarked that a White House dinner he held for Nobel Prize winners was “the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Ah,…
Do Asian vegetables confuse you? Don’t know your bok choy from your choy sum? Neither do I, but when David Tanis, one of my favorite food writers, published this recipe for Glazed Shiitakes With Bok Choy in his New York Times column City Kitchen, I soon found…
I made biscuits the other day. It sounded like a good idea but I ended up hating them. B-o-r-i-n-g. Even a generous pat of Kerrygold butter couldn’t bring them to life. OK. I’ll admit that it may have been me. I am in my…
