Food & Wine Magazine’s September 2018 issue attempts a task that must have almost impossible.  It’s the magazine’s 40th Anniversary issue and its editors had to decide which recipe best represented every single year’s output—literally hundreds of recipes.  In Food & Wine, you can trace…

Gail Simmons is such a glamorous presence on “Top Chef” that it’s easy to forget she’s first and foremost a great cook.  She’s also a fellow Canadian so I took a great deal of heat from Andrew for not knowing what a Bumbleberry was.  I’d…

Vegetable Biryani  When I first served Biryani—that intoxicatingly spiced Indian rice dish—to a friend with Indian roots, I held my breath. You don’t mess with tradition lightly. To my delight, she didn’t just approve—she went back for seconds. That was all the encouragement I needed…

“Ovenly” is a bakery that was started in, where else, Brooklyn.  It was the love child of two self-taught cooks, Agatha Kulaga and Erin Patinkin.  The pair are given to experimentation which has resulted in out-the-door lines of people waiting to buy items like their…

8 Reasons You Should Take a Scenic Cruise Along the Danube River August 22, 2018. I am very pleased to introduce you to a new outlet that I am working with. It’s called Travel-Wise and it’s a compendium of original travel stories that I think…

I won’t go into the dreary details of two nights spent in Frankfurt Airport where a freak storm stranded over 7000 passengers except to say that if a contest were held First Prize would be one night in Frankfurt Airport and Second Prize would be…

When Andrew and I plan a dinner party, the menu starts to percolate once the RSVPs have been received.  We try to think of our audience and we try to make things interesting.  Generally that means doing something completely new.  We have a fair amount…

This week, I got an email from my cousin Simon who lives in Britain but who once lived with my family in Montreal while he attended McGill University.  I’d just seen Simon and his wonderful wife Martha on my recent trip to England.  But we’ve…

One of the best things to have in the refrigerator in summer is a large quantity of chicken salad.  You can serve it on a bed of lettuce or make it into sandwiches.  You make it once and you have it all week. And I…

I must admit to having been slightly taken aback when Andrew told me his weekend plans included making Ice Cream Sandwiches.  Not that I didn’t want one.  And when the smell of his dark chocolate ‘biscuit’ wafted through the kitchen, I could hardly wait until…

Pictured above… Northern Fried Chicken with a Watermelon and Arugula Salad There are times when I just don’t want to post a recipe because it’s just too good.  It’s not that I am trying to keep it from you.  It is just that once a…

Our Godchild hit a major milestone this month. Olivia graduated cum laude from Poly Prep Country Day School in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. For four years she has left her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and  travelled to school, a considerable journey.  There…

When it comes to Buttermilk, I can come up with three recipes that require it: Waffles, Fried Chicken and Biscuits.  Buttermilk comes in quarts. The only recipe of the three that requires that much Buttermilk is perhaps the chicken marinade which is used to tenderize…

Salad lovers are in sheer heaven now and will be through the rest of the summer.  The ingredients for perfect salads are everywhere. And the earliest part of the season yields the tenderest of greens. Arugula has its bite but it’s far from bitter which…