Tart Rhubarb, the sweetness of Strawberries, the tang of Crème Fraiche and the warmth of brown sugar in every bite. In the annals of Chewing the Fat, no cake comes close to having a name as long as this one.  However, I could write a…

Have you tasted this year’s Strawberry crop? It’s strawberry season and they’re truly flawless this year.  Nothing could be more welcome than these beautiful, bountiful berries.   And nothing says the 4th of July quite like a Strawberry dessert.  We brought the brilliant red berries home…

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…

Main Visual: Photo Courtesy Bon Appetit. Strawberry season has arrived and this year’s Hampton’s crop reminds us all why we wait for these heart-shaped, bright red, sweet and juicy berries all year.  The question is what to do with them and the answer is right…

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…

This dessert is a showboat.  It looks like it came straight from Paris’ best patisserie.  And indeed its inspiration did.  It was Dorie Greenspan’s introduction to French pastry, an all-strawberry version and the first pastry she tasted when she first set foot in France.  It…

In the annals of Chewing the Fat, never has one cake come close to having a name as long as this one.  However, I could write a new adage: ‘the longer the name, the better the cake’.  Because I’d be hard-pressed to find a salute…

Julie Richardson wrote a cookbook devoted to old-fashioned cakes, the ones you may remember your grandmother cooking or at the very least, bringing home from the local bakery.   “Vintage Cakes” (Ten Speed Press 2012) is filled with gems that are not only nostalgic but are…

         One of the great joys of summer is that Andrew is back at the beach and back into baking.   It’s not that we don’t have temporary bursts of wonderful cakes, pies and cookies at other times of the year, but in Summer he settles…

  Today, we pair two recipes. One is from that doyenne of desserts, Martha Stewart in her “Martha Stewart Pies and Tarts” (Clarkson Potter 2011) and the other is from David Lebovitz in his “The Perfect Scoop” (10 Speed Press 2007).  The Paris-based Lebovitz knows his way…

Marcus Porcius Cato 234-149 BC If New York has a cake, it is most certainly our richly indulgent and sumptuously creamy cheesecake.  There is a lot of culinary history to support this claim.  And then there’s Junior’s, a Brooklyn Temple to Cheesecake which made history…

Uncle Andrew…there from the very beginning. Last weekend, we celebrated Father’s Day with all the necessary cards, salutations on Facebook, telephone calls filled with praise for Dear Old Dad.   I know how much it meant to me and how much I admire the Dad in…

           It’s full-on strawberry season on Long Island and Andrew’s taken another opportunity to wow us with this exquisite galette from Martha Stewart. The flavor and texture of this wonderfully flaky pastry covered in just-picked berries is irresistible.  But the ambrosial whipped cream topping–scented…

        It’s been a long, rainy spring here.  But true to form, we’ve gone directly from complaining about the cold to exclaiming about the heat. It hit the 90s this week which is way too hot, way too early.  Our garden, however, has never looked…