A Raspberry Chocolate Cake for our out-of-this-world Goddaughter Olivia Whitmer has been a part of our lives since the night she made her grand entrance into the world, and in the 26 years since, she’s only grown more extraordinary. A gifted young actress with a…

2 flavor-filled recipes for a summer berry cake that’s Gluten-Free. These almond cakes with luscious strawberry or blueberry filling are a delightful variation on Financiers, small French pastries that Andrew used to bring home every Friday from the late lamented Maison Keyser. Melissa Clark crafted…

This easily adaptable recipe is a perfect showcase for fresh fruit. When I asked Andrew for his recipe for this wonderfully homey dessert, he handed me one for Apricots and Blackberries.  His version had neither. Instead, the glorious peaches, blueberries, and raspberries that are at…

Now is the perfect moment for making these rustic pastries. Last weekend, Andrew was delighted to be back baking after a long winter hiatus. And the first thing he baked was a stone fruit galette.  It brought back memories of the individual galettes he had…

This Week, Bake this Versatile Almond Cake with Yotam Ottolenghi Andrew thinks that this cake would be an ideal breakfast cake, replacing coffee cake with its coconut, blueberries, and almonds.  All I can say is the cake is perfect, the berries juicy, the coconut and…

Two doyennes of home cooking’s recipes are combined in one spectacular dessert. Ina Garten gives great credit to her Easthampton neighbor, Martha Stewart for launching Ina’s publishing career.  They met when Ina was still running her food store, The Barefoot Contessa. It was Martha who…

Fresh Cranberries–or virtually any fruit you choose–make this Crumb Cake perfect for Holiday Baking. We have a lot of affection for Saveur Magazine. It was, after all, the first publication my food writing appeared in.  It’s also our kind of food magazine where there’s a…

The Food World suffered a great loss last month.  Molly O’Neill, one of the best food writers in the country died at just 66 years of age.  Molly O’Neill was the heir to a great legacy of food journalism that includes such luminaries at M.F.K.…

If you’re looking for a great cooking magazine, you really should look into Fine Cooking. It’s a wonderful learning tool. It would make a great gift for the Graduate or anyone starting out on their own. Its recipe directions are not shorthand. They’re written to…

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…

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…

 There’s a twitter feed called “Drunk Ina Garten” written by someone as a parody.  And every time I post an Ina Garten piece, the guy who tweets it picks up on it in about five minutes flat, re-tweets it and I get tons of hits…