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…

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…

The thrill of being invited to participate in a three-day adventure at the Culinary Institute of America, Napa Valley, California branch is about as good as it gets. Especially if you’re a self-taught home cook.  And the experience exceeded every imaginable expectation I had. How…

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…

I won’t go into the dreary details of two nights spent in Frankfurt Airport where a freak storm stranded over 7000 passengers except to say that if a contest were held First Prize would be one night in Frankfurt Airport and Second Prize would be…

I must admit to having been slightly taken aback when Andrew told me his weekend plans included making Ice Cream Sandwiches.  Not that I didn’t want one.  And when the smell of his dark chocolate ‘biscuit’ wafted through the kitchen, I could hardly wait until…

Salad lovers are in sheer heaven now and will be through the rest of the summer.  The ingredients for perfect salads are everywhere. And the earliest part of the season yields the tenderest of greens. Arugula has its bite but it’s far from bitter which…

I fell in love with this recipe in a heartbeat. It just looked so fresh, so complex and yet so simple to make. It’s the invention of Molly Baz who is a Senior Associate Food Editor at Bon Appetit.  She took her farmer’s market finds…

I realize I am a bit late to this party.  For a while I thought Martha Stewart had given up cooking any other way than by using a sheet pan. She created 17 sheet pan suppers for Pork alone. She made everything from Pizza to…

This weekend begins what is always called “The Unofficial Start of Summer”.  Never mind the Equinox is over three weeks away and it’s been horridly cold and rainy this month.  Nevertheless, this is the weekend that New Yorkers give up their weekends in the city…

Letizia Mattiaci of Alla Madonna del Piatto Lucky me!  I’ve been traveling most of the month of May.  I’ve done two almost back-to-back river cruises, one on the Rhine from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands with stops along the way in France and Germany.  A…

Every Fall, I make a point of ‘putting up’ some farm stand produce.  “Putting up” was a phrase used by our grandmothers to describe canning enough vegetables to get their families through the winter. This was long before we were able to import fresh vegetables…

        I don’t know how we got to the last week of August so quickly. But it’s been a wonderful summer here and every chance we’ve gotten, we’ve enjoyed great salads all made, with few exceptions, with ingredients found within five miles of our house. …

Chef Thomas Keller          With the farm stands near us barely able to contain the bumper harvest from this glorious sunny summer in the Hamptons, it seems highly appropriate to bring you a great recipe for a vegetable feast.  And what says summer more than…