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…
Lamb Chops with Sumac
Should your fingers do this–that is, roll inward and sometimes lock–you’ll be forced to stop whatever you’re doing, put down/let go of whatever you might be holding, and unlock the offending finger(s) with your free hand. As you might imagine, this isn’t always a realistic proposition. One cannot stop whatever…
Cauliflower Potato Soup
Before going any further, Congratulations to Annelies Zijderveld for the IACP member of the year award and to Naomi Duguid for winning the IACP Culinary Travel Award. I have the uniquely good fortune of knowing both authors. Congratulations to all the winners. — Cauliflower is having a moment. It’s the reigning…
On Instagram
This is my first camera. It’s a Minolta X-570. I got it in 1982, for my sixteenth birthday. Photography was an expensive habit in 1982. First you had to buy film, commercially available in 12, 24, or 36 exposure rolls. Unless you were truly serious and had access to a…
The Bombay East Bay Vegetable Sandwich
If you want a recipe to fail, choose one you’ve been meaning to cook for at least a decade. Decide to cook it on a day when you aren’t home alone. A day when you must shop for ingredients before cooking. See chaos ensue. Of course you’ve chosen a recipe necessitating many…
Braised Oxtail
Michael Franti wrote a song called “Everyday Life Has Become A Health Risk.” No explanation necessary, right? — So, food. It feels insane to discuss food right now. The United States is collapsing and we’re talking about oxtail? Well, we still need to eat. And we must escape, if only…
Eugenia’s Olive Oil Pound Cake
What interesting times we live in. When not attending marches, mopping up after barfing kitties, tending husbands with neuromuscular disease who caught cold (a volatile and potentially fatal combination), your hostess took it into her head to mess with a pound cake recipe. (Kitty and husband are fine. You were…
Kitchen Note: repairing Pot Au Feu
Why not start with a nice NorCal flower picture? I was trying to take flower pictures the other day, and this seems like a good excuse to use them. Here’s another. You may be wondering flowers have to with pot au feu, or boiled beef. Nothing. They’re just pretty in…
Laksa with Chicken and Pumpkin
You would think we only eat pork or poultry around here, and if stats are any indication, some of you are getting bored by this. Then again, you may be distracted by larger events. Maybe your country is leaving the European Union…or perhaps your country is leaving civilized society entirely….
Pork Belly with Potatoes
On December 18th 2015, the IK posted a recipe for pork belly with beans. By some weird coincidence, exactly one year later, on December 18th, 2016, the IK decided to make pork belly with beans again. While the foregoing makes it sound as if Mr. and Mrs. IK have eaten the dish only…