CHEWING THE FAT

         Growing up in Canada, the Sunday Roast was a tradition in our house.  An enormous piece of beef would appear on the dinner table and our extended family would dig in.  And it was almost always beef because my parents had…

         Several weeks ago, Andrew went to the Institute of Culinary Education, a great cooking school on 23rd St. in Chelsea (www.ice.edu) where he had signed up with one of the masters of the baking arts, Nick Maglieri.  The class was small – just 9 students –…

         We have had a lot of Thanksgivings that weren’t at home. I’ve always volunteered to cook and love doing it. The first-ever Thanksgiving with my son Alex and his family was one I will never forget.  It was my first West Coast Thanksgiving. I…

         I’ll let you in on a little secret.  Of all Ina Garten’s cookbooks, “Barefoot in Paris” (Clarkson Potter 2004) was the least successful in terms of sales.  That came as a complete surprise to me because I find it one of the best “French”…

The year, for the first time ever, I am heading out to California to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with three of my favorite people on earth: my son, my daughter-in-law and my 6 year old grandson.  The minute I knew the trip was on, I…

         I don’t think food should be controversial. It should be one of life’s great pleasures. To quote none other than Luciano Pavarotti “One of the nicest things about life is that we regularly have to stop whatever it is we are doing and devote…

Last summer, in the course of one week, I saw three recipes posted for an identical dish.  Authored by Martha Stewart, it involved putting the entire contents of a pasta dinner into one pot and firing the stove up to create a meal that was…

           Seamus Mullen’s name would give you no clue as to this particular chef’s specialty.   Chef Mullen is the chef/owner of two wildly popular and critically acclaimed restaurants specializing in modern Spanish cuisine.  The first, Tertulia in Greenwich Village (359 6th Avenue, NYC 10012 Tel:…

         I am insanely jealous of Naomi Duguid.  This writer, photographer, cook and traveller has made a career out seeing of the world and bringing it home in cookbooks.  What a dream job for a foodie with wanderlust!  Duguid has written six…

Today is Chewing the Fat’s 5th Birthday!  Five years ago this very day we published our very first post!  We’ve been hard at it ever since.  Now, 526 posts and over 900,000 (!) page views later, we are celebrating this milestone with a request: Will…

       The other day I was on the lookout for something quick to cook, which Chinese food almost always is. I like cooking Chinese food at home.  You can keep the notoriously high fat counts down and never worry for a moment whether…

Pork is the world’s most widely-eaten meat.  It accounts for 38 percent of meat production worldwide.  You’ll have trouble finding it in the Middle East and most of the Muslim world because both Jewish kosher and Islamic halal diets ban it outright.  But almost everywhere…

          The stalks of Brussels Sprouts made their appearance at the farm stand a couple of weeks ago.   Because the weather here has been unusually warm, Brussels Sprouts seemed a little out of season.  But with the temperatures falling, it was…

Ina Garten’s French Toast — jumping off point for our casserole I’m always on the lookout for a great breakfast casserole for a crowd. This is because a couple of times a year I am called upon to help out at a Church breakfast.  I am…