Broiled Flank Steak with Mustard Mashed Potatoes
In 1994, yours truly sat in a grubby apartment, roach-infested apartment, reading Laurie Colwin’s More Home Cooking. Building management suggested we purchase geckos to eat the roaches. Animals of the four-legged variety were not permitted. (Forbidden.) So a youthful version of yours truly sat in the chair she’d hauled in from the…
Steak Fajitas
Home Cooking includes an essay entitled “Flank Steak: The Neglected Cut.” In it, Laurie Colwin extols the virtues of a cut that, since the essay was written, is no longer neglected. Indeed, like lamb shank and short rib, flank steak has become popular and therefore expensive. Much of said popularity…
Grilled Peppers
Lulu scorns the barbaric habit of turning peppers over a gas flame to blister the skins and holding them beneath running water to rub the skins off. Richard Olney, Lulu’s Provençal Table Since discovering roasted peppers–and realizing how easy it is to prepare them–I’ve gotten addicted. Sometimes I just roast…
Dragon Tongue Beans
Excuse the quiet over here. Just before Prince stunned the world, John fell ill, necessitating some quality time at the hospital, where we impressed the nurses with our lifting technique. He is home now, rapidly recovering, almost his usual self. As you might imagine, recent events left little time or energy for…
Vietnamese Chicken Curry
Discuss kitchen equipment with passionate cooks and witness attachment to the most unlikely objects. Laurie Colwin had her cracked Meissen plate, which held any number of solo eggplant concoctions (see “Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant”, Home Cooking). Amanda Hesser has her bone-handled forks. (Cooking for Mr. Latte, The Best Food Writing,…
Braised Short Ribs
Braised Short Ribs belong to the important family of stews, braises, and daubes, those heartily earthy dishes of winter. In this discussion, the term “stew” is synonymous with “braise,” signifying a dish requiring long, slow cooking, usually in a low oven. My passion for braising began in grad school, while reading…
Kitchen Kit and Singing Chickens
What follows is an unusually long post, and isn’t indicative of future writing. Given the holidays, I felt this was the time write about equipment, and perhaps take a risk with a longer piece. Feel free to skip to the end and check out the recipe for Chicken with…
