Beef and Pork

Stuffed Cabbage

November 23, 2020

Stuffed cabbage exists in numerous cuisines, but the French have turned this abstemious dish into a delicacy. Recipes for chou farci range from the simple pork-wrapped parcels in Lulu’s Provencal Table to Goose Fat And Garlic’s outrageously rich recipe calling for ham, heavy cream, and cheese. Then there are miques:…

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As the world grows increasingly disorderly, I find myself seeking refuge in the past. By “the past,” I mean cookbooks. I don’t have a time machine. Let us turn to Britain between the wars. Built during World War II, but not in Britain. Shot several years ago. — It is…

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So, yeah, it’s been entirely too long. I have committed the blogger’s cardinal sin of not posting. I could give all the reasons, but you read the news, don’t you? And the news, it’s very bad. Read it enough, and you will become depressed. Seriously depressed. And if you are…

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Social media is awash in titles like the above. They’re decidedly grim, but no sense messing around, is there? Unrelated pretty picture. I’m sorry if you’re sick of these kinds of posts. Who could blame you? By now you’re probably sick of just about everything. You long to go outside….

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We’re very fond of oxtail at the IK. Evidently lots of other people are, too, because when I made it a few weeks ago, and did the instagram thing, the post got lots of likes. Which is extremely important these days, right? Well, not really, what with Australia in flames…

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Cabbage Soup

December 30, 2019

Pity the poor cabbage. It gets a bad rap. Too many people are scarred by bad cabbage experiences: boiled beyond recognition….or the cabbage soup diet. Lacking illustrative photos of overboiled cabbage or the soup diet, I give you San Francisco’s Union Square. More accurately, a street near Union Square. Handled…

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It’s October. The season of pumpkin spice is upon us.  Everywhere you go, pumpkin spice: pies, cakes, cookies. Pumpkin spice candles, therapeutic oils, scented sprays. Okay, maybe not everywhere. My local office supply store has no pumpkin spice in sight. They’re closing October 18th to make way for a high-rise…

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Well, there’s a mouthful of a recipe title after a silent summer. And what a summer it’s been. Your hostess has spent her summer–nay, all year–contending with crippling back pain. Said pain makes standing for long peroids challenging. Meaning blogging–recipe testing, photographing, cooking–is also challenging. Many were the false starts,…

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Thai cookbooks abound in recipes for geng jeut mara yord sai, or pork-stuffed bitter melon soups. “Soups,” plural, as this recipe has countless variations. Some cooks stuff cucumber instead of bitter melon; others abandon the vegetable container in favor of squid. Yet another variation of geng jeut mara yord sai  abandons…

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Mock Porchetta

March 27, 2019

Judy Rodgers, writing in the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, describes mock porchetta as A very modest, very manageable interpretation of the Tuscan “big pig” that few Americans, or Italians, could ever manage at home. Indeed, this comparatively diminutive roast is nothing if manageable–making it my go-to dinner party dish for decades….

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