Pantry Items

Amanda’s Chocolate Cookies comes from Amanda Hesser’s Cooking For Mr. Latte, where it is called Chocolate Chunk-Pecan-Coconut Cookies. As I have changed the recipe a great deal, removing the both the pecans and the coconut shreds, I have altered the name accordingly. The result is a hefty chocolate chip cookie,…

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Last week, between bouts of doomscrolling, I remembered Laurie Colwin’s essay about boiled beef. The best boiled beef I ever ate was at the Ukrainian Restaurant at the Ukrainian National Home on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I would gladly go out in a violent storm and walk over…

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Spinach and Potato Saute

February 28, 2022

Before I began blogging, I bought a how-to book: blogging for luddites. It covered all the basics: posting regularly, how to shoot pictures for a blog (the thing I feared most, believe it or not), SEO, advertising, newsletters. I didn’t follow most of the author’s advice, but found the book…

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Chocolate Malted Muffins

February 14, 2022

Chocolate malted muffins? Chocolate for breakfast? Okay, a muffin barely this side of cupcake isn’t exactly breakfast of champions. This said, the chocolate malted muffin’s nutrition profile may be improved by exchanging chocolate chips for dried fruits or nuts. Consider dried cranberries, currants, or a handful of almonds. Frozen strawberries…

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Hi. Your hostess returns. On December 16th I got my third Covid booster. The first two were Pfizer, and no big deal. The third was Moderna, and made me so sick John considered calling an ambulance. (Despite the above, I still think everyone should get vaccinated and boosted. A few…

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Ah, November. The container ships are in backed up in the harbor, and with them, some of the holiday craziness normally upon us by now. Am I a grinch to be grateful? Not that I hate the holidays. I don’t. But the enforced cheer is wearying, especially when it starts…

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Savouries, like the Foot Guard Uniform and cream teas, are a uniquely British institution. Modern eaters will recognize these salty, spicy, small bites as appetizers, commonly appearing before the meal with drinks. Famous savouries include angels on horseback–that’s a bacon wrapped prune–and Fergus Henderson’s bone marrow and parsley salad. Not…

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Pickled Onions

July 14, 2021

Once again your hostess would like to apologize for being such a laggardly poster. It’s not lack of interest in the blog, or in you, my readers. The truth is the same dull reason it’s always been: my health. More precisely, my back. Last week I had yet another cortisone…

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The Fried Chicken Wrap

June 7, 2021

  The ethics of blogging–and yes, such things do exist–contend that three changes to a recipe make it one’s own. So while it would be “ethical” for me to claim I invented the fried chicken wrap, I did not. The original recipe comes from Nigella Lawson’s Cook, Eat, Repeat, where…

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Wacky Cake Revisited

April 19, 2021

As more people are vaccinated and lockdowns lift, social life is gradually resuming. People are once more gathering and eating together. Sooner or later, you may be invited someplace, and you may be asked to bring a dessert. Many people, rightly or not, find the entire business of baking anxiety-inducing….

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