Friends with Food Benefits. One of the great things about writing about food is that eventually, people seek you out with great things to cook and great wines to drink.  So it was that I found myself in possession of a bottle of Garda DOC…

The Astonishing Allure of Thai Cooking Combined with the Irresistibly-priced Costco Rotisserie Chicken I cannot seem to pass up Costco’s Rotisserie Chicken.  At $4.99, I marvel at how it’s actually priced lower than its raw counterpart a few yards away in the store.  But regardless…

A return to California with a recipe and reminiscence of one of the true greats of California Cuisine. I came out to California this week as a guest of Viking Cruises. They’re naming the newest of their Ocean Cruise Ships, Jupiter and they are introducing…

# 1 Candidate for Dinner any night this week This recipe is amazingly easy to put together and quick to cook.  That makes it a candidate for any weeknight dinner you have this week.  And I even found a hack that made it even easier.…

Is there any easier way to cook than on a Sheet Pan? Whoever invented Sheet Pan Recipes deserves a medal.  There is likely no more simple way of cooking than this.  All the ingredients cook at the same time in the same pan. And once…

A dish you can have on the table in under 30 minutes Coming across this recipe was like running into an old friend.  It’s from “Bobby at Home: Fearless Flavors from My Kitchen” (Clarkson Potter 2019), Bobby Flay’s latest cookbook. In it he says, “I…

Chicken Cacciatore, that Italian classic Chicken Stew, seems an odd choice for a summer meal. However, not too long ago, I was craving it and having just loaded up on Chicken thighs and with 8 people coming to dinner, I went with my craving and…

As I was leafing through Food and Wine Magazine from October 2018, I stopped at an article focused on Richard Olney. In the words of Wikipedia, “Richard Olney (April 12, 1927 – August 3, 1999) was an American painter, cook, food writer, editor, and memoirist…

Cinco de Mayo came one day late this year. We celebrated Seis de Mayo with this wonderful soup. It’s one of those soups that makes a meal. Rich, satisfying, and truly filled with the goodness of vegetables and spices for a depth of flavor we…

As much as I love Chicken Pot Pie, I was looking to kick things up and bring some new flavors to this old family favorite.  And old is an appropriate word.  Pot Pies have a history going back to ancient Greece.  The Greeks cooked meats…

If you live in the East, you’re experiencing an arctic blast of obscenely low temperatures. We’re so bundled up against the cold, not even the runners are out these mornings.  There is a cure for the cold. And that of course, is a bowl of…

Melissa Clark has to be one of the most prolific food writers and cooks in all of history. There’s her constant presence in the Food Section of The New York Times, where week after she creates some of our most memorable meals.  Just type Melissa…

Not too long ago, Andrew had a birthday.  The minute I’d seen it advertised, I’d ordered Dorie Greenspan’s latest book “Everyday Dorie”(A Rux Martin Book Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2018) as a gift. It turned out the book took 244 pages before landing at “Desserts”. So…

No American producer of Goat Cheese is more responsible for its ever- increasing popularity than California’s Laura Chenel’s.  Starting in the 1970s, Chenel’s became America’s first commercial producer of this extraordinarily healthful cheese. Everything from its calorie count – 30 to 40{7764cd352edcf19b608e75b52a560f8f0623df8defec59f0ed185161f2ba1413} lower than cow’s milk…