eating is living

More of an idea than a recipe, here’s another one for all of you garlic lovers out there. A scape is the green stalk that rises from a garlic bulb. Although they’re usually cut to avoid depleting the bulb of its mass, if scapes are allowed to grow unmolested, they will become long, curling tendrils [...]

Bell peppers, sweet, juicy, beautifully sculpted, and painted in a palette of vibrant colors, are abundant year round in the U.S., thanks to our southern neighbor Mexico, which grows them in great profusion. Often chopped or sliced and used as a flavoring or garnish, they are also excellent as the centerpiece of a dinner plate. [...]

And you didn’t know you needed another excuse to eat fennel, did you? Well, here it is. As an astute diner at my table recently pointed out, it’s kind of like a fennel vichyssoise. Creamy and smooth, rich with the exotic aromas of my favorite vegetable, Foeniculum vulgare, this soup is a perfect start to [...]

As you can probably tell from looking through my recipes, I’m a big fan of soup. And on a chilly night, nothing complements a steaming bowl of lovely soup more than a full-flavored, crunchy/chewy, densely crumbed hunk of multigrain bread. Rustic and healthy and hearty, a bread like this screams for a little butter (like [...]

When bananas get a little brown and soft, they may not be the most appetizing to eat out of hand, but they are very sweet and the banana flavor is very concentrated, so they work really well in banana bread. And if you have only a banana or two at a time that get that [...]

Yet again I fear I am risking the wrath of the purists who will say this is not truly focaccia, but it’s certainly in the spirit of focaccia, if not the precise letter of the Italian bread law. If you’ve never made yeast bread before, this is a good one to start with; it’s one [...]

Summer saddens a little as it fades to cooler autumn, but the end of summer is when the corn and tomatoes are at their prime. Plump and tart and juicy and warm from the sun, redness made round, tomatoes just scream summer. Corn, sweet and lovely in its field rows, repeats the pattern in its [...]

Papaya is a wonderfully versatile fruit, perhaps because it is not too sweet. Its ripe flavor is subtle, hinting at the subtropical mango and durian, but without the cloying sweetness that characterizes those fruits. Unripe, it is fantastic shredded and tossed with lime juice and nuoq mam, as in the Thai dish som tum or [...]

In this chilly little soup, a pair of red fruits come together to sing a gorgeous summer song. Watermelon may seem like a slightly strange thing to combine with tomatoes, but you might be surprised. Watermelon’s fresh, sweet flavor has a lot in common with cucumbers, and certainly cucumbers are a well-known gazpacho ingredient. So [...]

Here’s another shrimp creole recipe, somewhat simpler than my earlier one. I’ve reduced the fat in the recipe by making a smaller roux, substituted fennel for the celery, increased the wine to 1 cup, and used a little less tomato. If you’re new to making a roux, be sure you take a look at the [...]

keep looking »