A few years ago, I got a call from a guest who was about two hours away from coming to dinner.  He’d called to tell me that he and his new wife had become vegetarian.   Quite frankly, my initial impulse was to continue cooking the…

Scampi  I first wrote this post a year ago. But I thought I would repeat it again this year because it’s a wonderful explanation of an Italian tradition that many Italian Americans will uphold again this Christmas Season. And the recipe follows my mantra for…

Brussels Sprouts in Winter on the North Fork of Long Island As a boy, I cannot think of a vegetable I detested quite as much at the Brussels Sprout.  These nasty little cabbages were about as appealing to me as damp pair of socks. I…

You might want to hide after what I turned up… read on… Here’s a food writer’s dilemma for you:  Say you discovered a great recipe so full of flavor and so easy to make, you literally jumped on your MacPro and started to extoll its…

            Marcella Hazan just celebrated her 89th Birthday.  As a salute to this great lady, a Facebook friend of mine who has taken the time to answer many Italian food questions for me, I wanted to celebrate too. Fortunately, March 2013’s…

Scott Conant, Chef and Pasta Tester             After I’d made this dish, it came as no surprise to learn that Food and Wine had named it one of 10 Best Pasta dishes when it first appeared in 2010.  Judging the 10…

First Issue of Gourmet, January 1941          How we still miss Gourmet!  Some of my earliest childhood memories are listening to my father reading aloud as he and my mother ate vicariously at Gourmet’s table.  The magazine first appeared in 1941.  The United States entered…

Sara Jenkins as photographed by New York Magazine          There’s almost no end to what people are putting on pasta these days. The most recent issue of Bon Appetit has 7 entirely new takes on pasta sauces and a couple of pastas that are new…

         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…

        I don’t think it constitutes a trend but two of my food magazines published recipes for basically the same dish this month.  The magazines in question hardly rival Gourmet.  “Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food” is geared to the home cook and one who…

         There are certain recipes I obsess over.  I have folder marked “Re-Visit” and in it there must be at least five recipes for baked pasta dishes.  They all are fundamentally the same.  The pasta is cooked and then a sauce is mixed into it,…

         I love pasta and I am always on the lookout for a new and different way to prepare it.   There are sauces that require hours on the stove and that are best made in huge batches. “Bolognese” falls into that camp. Whatever the recipe,…

Dan Kluger and his boss, Jean-Georges Vongerichten in the ABC Kitchen          In July, Food & Wine magazine announced its picks in its annual “Best New Chefs” issue.  And it came as no surprise to us at all that the magazine had selected Chef Dan…

            Have you ever bought one of those massive bricks of Dubliner cheese at Costco and then gotten home and thought how on earth can I use all this?  Not that Dubliner isn’t a robust choice: Its flavor has the sharpness of a great aged…