Confession Time:  Those vegetables that look like potatoes? They are potatoes served alongside the dish the night before. Since I didn’t get a photograph then, this picture was taken the next day with the leftovers potatoes added to the stew.          When we entertain, I…

Julia Child with her “Coq”          Cold winter nights are made for eating Coq au Vin.  And on a cold winter afternoon, the aroma of this great French classic cooking fills the kitchen with comfort.   A “Coq” is French for rooster and there lies the…

         A few months ago, my friend Peter told me about Optical 88, an optical shop in the heart of Chinatown, at 116 Mott Street (Tel: 212-343-1947).  I am all for money saving and he raved about the service and the prices.  I looked on…

         There are few dishes that are better to have on hand than lasagna. Over the years, we’ve all suffered through terrible versions of lasagna–people making the stuff with cottage cheese or ricotta, throwing in chunks of sausage instead of a proper meat sauce, jarred…

The Tastee Inn in Sioux City, Iowa where you can get a Sloppy Joe or Loose Meat Sandwich for $2.00 The Sloppy Joe is hardly anyone’s idea of gourmet food. This may lie in the fact that making one requires virtually no culinary skills of…

The book “Throwdown” has over 100 recipes– but only 33 of them are Bobby’s  Bobby Flay’s “Throwdown” has been around for 9 seasons on Food Network TV.  In case you missed any of the over 100 episodes, they’re rerun on the Cooking Channel often enough…

                    Meatloaf is an intensely personal experience.  Every family has a meatloaf recipe that is so dearly loved, it achieves iconic status.  This family recipe should not be abridged or changed in any way or else…

David Tanis           I wasn’t familiar with David Tanis at all until he started writing the City Kitchen column in Wednesday’s Dining Section in the Times. Clearly, I’d been missing a lot.  While David’s recipes have often peaked my interest, this is the first one…

         Of this year’s cookbooks, “Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking” by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubert (Gibbs Smith 2012) is at the top of every list of the year’s best.  I’ve already shared the story of my sideways connection to Ms. Dupree in an…

         Last October, when I was out in California visiting my son Alex’s family, I picked up a freebie publication called California Home Design.  In it was an article about a wine making family in Healdsburg who, with the help of local chef, put together…

There’s something rewarding about having the time to make a really exceptional breakfast. Hopefully, the rush of the last few days before Christmas will yield way to a day off, a time to admire your gifts and sit back and enjoy life. And to enjoy…

The incomparable Joanne Chang Christmas Baking is as much a part of the holiday as decorating the tree or singing songs of Christmas.  And if you have children, it’s great fun to get them into the kitchen and bake a few cookies.  This year, the…

         At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the stir-fry is the savior of every harried home cook.  When you have to get dinner on the table in as short a time as possible, a stir-fry’s hard to beat.  It’s all a matter…

         The bones for this recipe came from a famous English cook and television personality who shall remain nameless.  It’s not that I don’t devour the prose in the cookbooks the chef’s written.  It’s beautiful and seductive.  But when it comes to the recipes I’ve…