We could ‘fancy-up’ the name of this dish by calling it Pasta al Forno. It still wouldn’t alter the fact that this might well be called Cheeseburger Pasta. Ooey gooey, cheesy, meaty.  This is Andrew and my idea of comfort food times three. Baked Ziti…

Rome’s favorite and most famous pasta dish gets a major makeover. When I lived in Rome, I can’t count how often I would order this dish. At least once a week, I would sit down to a bowl of this pasta.  Just four ingredients made…

Ina Garten’s Winter Minestrone is remarkably simple to make.  Trust Ina Garten to give us a recipe so dead easy, that you could decide to make it an hour before dinner.  It’s from Ina’s 2012 cookbook “Foolproof” (Clarkson-Potter). I looked at the ingredient list and…

This Lamb Ragu is a colorful and flavorful introduction to Fall. Chef Micheal Mina’s recipe for Lamb Ragu is a keeper. It starts with a bouquet garni of fennel and cumin seeds, Aleppo pepper, and whole black peppercorns.  This gives the dish a hint of…

Call it a Flatbread but this is a Fig, Gorgonzola, and Arugula Pizza. And who doesn’t love pizza? Covered with a thin layer of fig jam, it was then sprinkled abundantly with Gorgonzola, the crumbly Italian Blue Cheese. Gorgonzola packs quite a punch of flavor,…

I am a sucker for “What to Cook This Week” from the New York Times. Here’s one reason why. Very often this email from the NYTimes is the work of Sam Sifton. Sifton is billed as the founding editor of NYT Cooking. And Sam is…

“Dinner in French”, Melissa Clark’s latest Cookbook is filled with great, easy recipes. Confession time. For some reason, I associate French food with cooler temperatures. Give me Oxtail Bourguignon in October, my first bowl of Onion Soup at first frost.  But I’ve been raring to…

This meal is a sum of its parts: A sublime Fried Chicken, my take on Sicily’s Caponata and great Pesto topping a crispy toasted Baguette. When I was looking around for something special to serve as a supper for guests, I came across this extraordinary…

If your ambitions for this week included baking great bread, this is for you. Breadmaking has become wildly popular. All over Instagram our friends are posting glorious photos of all kinds of sourdough boules, baguettes, Irish brown bread, and the inevitable pizza dough. To say…

A comforting bowl of soup you can get on the table in under 30 minutes Isn’t it time for you to take a break?  If you’re like millions of us, you never cooked so many meals in your life.  And it’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner.…

A transformative dish that takes me to a much happier place. I think it will do the same for you. These days dinner means more than mere sustenance. While we all ‘shelter in place’, it’s a mighty punctuation point to our day. Dinner is a…

 All that pasta you just bought put to very good use indeed. In New York City where I live, the supermarkets have been stripped bare of many items. But I have to say the complete absence of pasta is quite stunning.  That may well be…

Beloved Italy is beset with a healthcare crisis like no other. You would have to be living in outer space not to be following the story of the Covid-19 Virus. And if you have an affinity for Italy, I am sure your heart, like mine,…

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…