The great challenge of home cooking is finding ways to bring new life to everyday family favorites.  At our house, this is a true mission since every meal is a candidate for this blog. We are constantly on the lookout for ways of…

Suzanne Goin                What’s better than a long braise on a cold winter’s day?  Filling the house with wonderful smells for a few hours, it’s the perfect dish to cook on a wintry Saturday or Sunday when you want to…

        It’s been a really rough winter here so far and there are still 50 days to go.  But I found a couple of ways to conjure happier and warmer days.  This is thanks to the introduction of some delicious, ripe tomatoes that are…

More days this winter have kept us locked up in the house than I can remember.   This week there was a day that was so cold, you had to go back 10 in years in New York to find a matching temperature.  Being stuck in…

       When I was growing up, thrift was highly valued in our house. It didn’t really have much to do with how much we had or didn’t have.  I don’t know how many of my readers know this but the Scots are notoriously thrifty.…

      The old expression ‘while the cats away’ certainly applies to this particular dish.  Andrew was off in Texas visiting his family and I was here in New York playing away in the kitchen.  Now Andrew is not a picky eater but there are…

Eye of Round…not the tenderest cut but one of the least expensive         To cook a roast beef during the week has always struck me as quite an accomplishment.  Then I discovered the Eye of Round roast at Costco.  Now I grant you…

A while ago, one of my oldest and dearest friends, was writing an International Gluten-Free cookbook.  Michael’s question to me was what could he include that would be truly Canadian.   To me, the answer was very simple.  With apologies to the entire state of Vermont, anything…

        One of the most fun things about last year’s Farmer’s Markets was the presence of our local winery, Wollfer Estate, at each one of them.  First it was staffed by my friend Cassie, until she landed a spot at the local TV…

        For my final Chewing the Fat post of the year, I wanted to share a recipe I developed about 25 years ago.  It appeared in Saveur magazine and if you google it, you’ll find it on several of recipe sites.  To me, what’s odd…

We’ve had the most wonderful Christmas and now we are virtually housebound, there having been a significant snowfall on the East End of Long Island the day after Christmas.  The snow has stopped but the wind is blowing and the eight or so inches of…

        I recently introduced Andrew to the Breslin, April Bloomfield’s gastropub in the Ace Hotel (16 West 29th St. between Fifth Ave. and Broadway Tel: 212 679 1939) .   We sat at the bar and ate our lamb burgers and thrice-cooked chips and…

        I remember a friend telling me that once she gave her husband a Wok for Christmas, it was pretty much Wok-around-the-clock from that point on. As I remember, he was one of the first men I knew who’d taken over the kitchen and cooked…

Mary Woltz of Bee’s Needs in Sag Harbor NY The East End of Long Island of Long Island is full of people doing wonderful things with food.  Among them is one my favorite people, Mary Woltz.  The North Carolina native has single-handedly invented “Bee’s Needs”,…