Online now: Singing in four-part harmony
Fines herbes: One up from menage a trois.
No trees were harmed
The print version of this was roundly lambasted in cyberspace, and as time has flown past, I realize why: There was no need to tell when I could just show. Because I still get asked constantly how to start a blog, here’s a recipe, meant to be followed bottoms-up.
Slicing, dicing and posting
Drafted for the LATimes/2008
Joel Robuchon recently made news in the food blogosphere by doing what chefs have done since Al Gore invented the internet: complain about food bloggers. Judging by the latest trend, you can expect him to become one any day now.
MarioBatali, after all, went from lambasting to posting in less time Read the rest of this entry »
Dumpling Hero
Produced for the LATimes/February 2008
Not so long ago I went to the best party in years: The guests brought wine or beer. The hosts provided the makings for Chinese dumplings. And everyone did the work assembling them. I walked into a kitchen full of mostly strangers and left having enjoyed a good conversation with nearly all of them.
Clearly, there are icebreakers, and then there are dumplings.
German chocolate — more than just a cake
Los Angeles Times/February 2008
GERMAN chocolate cake looks pretty good for 50 — the combination of tangy-sweet layers and nutty custard is as irresistible as it was when the recipe was first published in a Texas newspaper back in the Eisenhower era. If it were a Reese’s cup or an Oreo, German chocolate cake would be into its 10th reincarnation by now.
But this is one venerable dessert that needs an homage more than a makeover. If you take the same concept, with essentially the same ingredients, you can produce any number of variations with just as much extravagant flavor and texture but with 2.0 attitude.
Beignets: It’s air time
Los Angeles Times/January 2008
DEEP-frying is the bacon of cooking techniques: It makes everything taste better. Do it with beignets, though, and you get the irresistible results in a more lyrical package. The word is almost as satisfying to say as the real thing is to eat. Beignets sound so much lighter and airier than fritters, but they are no easier to pass up.
Spanish for pizza, sort of
Los Angeles Times/January 2008
“EXPECT the expected” is usually the best slogan when you’re invited for brunch, but what a new friend had waiting on his kitchen counter a few Saturdays ago was not just a fresh idea. It could be the greatest thing since sliced pizza.
My host Bruce Stutz, a writer and obsessive cook recently back from Barcelona,
First with the pan roast
Los Angeles Times/December 2007
EXCEPT when it comes to caviar, effortless extravagance sounds like a contradiction in terms. But there is no better description of a seafood pan roast.
Speed-dating 2007 cookbooks
Los Angeles Times/Christmas 2007
WALK into the cookbook section of a good bookstore these days and it’s what you don’t see that’s the biggest gift of the season. Instead of the miles of aisles of Food Network-packaged slickness, the interchangeable Paula/Rachael/Giadas that have been so inescapable all year, there are small piles of serious recipe collections from serious cooks. And some big piles, too.
There are so many tantalizing cookbooks out there that I resorted to speed dating — dipping in and out of the most immediately appealing — to see which would work as presents. I soon learned that counterintuitive bits — a promise of foolproof focaccia, say, or a demand to boil oranges for an hour and a half before starting a cake — are likely to lead straight to heartbreak. But I also learned new tricks with a favorite vegetable (squash), found some wild combinations (Brussels sprouts, chestnuts and smoked salmon rock together) and came away with a really nice pile of books to settle down with. Read the rest of this entry »