Yogurt Flatbread
Back in November, before seeing Nigella Lawson at San Francisco’s Omnivore Books, I ate dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. The server asked if I wanted rice with my meal. Yes, I did. Astonished, he repeated the question. Yes, I repeated, I’d like rice with my meal. The entree arrived…
Pork Belly With Beans
Over at Gluten Free Girl And The Chef, Shauna James Ahern admits it’s been difficult getting into the holiday spirit. I couldn’t agree more. The past week has seen me writing and discarding countless drafts to that effect. All sounded too whiny, too negative, too miserable. But recent months have seen…
Pork Roasted In Banana Leaves (Cochinita Pibil)
Yesterday I had a doctor appointment; I’ve been trying to get follow-up care for the tennis elbow. I arrived at the office only to find my doctor had cancelled her appointments for the day. Had her patients been informed? Of course not. Clearly, the very notion of continuing medical care falls into the…
Chickpea Chorizo Soup
This soup reflects continuing adventures in one-handed cookery while I struggle with Right Lateral Epicondylitis, whose onset last week was as abrupt as it was painful. I can’t pretend it’s been a good time, but people are stressed enough without my bitching. Let’s talk about Nigella Lawson for a minute…
Asian Noodle Soup
This will be brief, as I am experiencing an acute episode of Right Lateral Epicondylitis, or tennis elbow. After visiting a shockingly insensitive physician Thursday, I departed with a handful of steroids and useless instructions to “do nothing”. As doing nothing is not possible, the man insisted “do something about…
Preserved Lemons
So, are we having fun yet? Indeed we are. Here at the IK we’ve spent the past two weeks and much of our savings flying about California. We were ill-assisted by an airline team whose experience with wheelchair users was minimal, an accessible van rental agency who left the…
The IK Basic Burger
Restaurant menus offering hamburgers with overly fancy toppings or exotic fillings make me extremely nervous. No, I don’t want artisanal French cheese, hand-foraged field mushrooms, or Iberian ham atop my burger. Tapenade doesn’t belong inside a burger, though I once followed a misguided recipe calling for just such a combination. …
Hot Pepper Sauce: A Ghost Recipe
All cooks save recipes. It can be a peculiar pastime. For every two dozen recipes stuffed into a folder or box or computerized whatnot, one might slide into regular rotation. And that recipe often ends up so altered over time–the onions becoming scallions, the tomato sauce morphing into paste, the…
Notes on Canning Tomatoes
The literature of canning abounds in talk of capturing time. Terms like “peak freshness”, “seasonality”, and “ripeness” are certain to appear whenever people begin musing over the meaning of canning. It’s all true. To can tomatoes in August is to hope you’ll be opening the jars in February. To gaze upon…
Oven-Dried Cherry Tomatoes
Note: This recipe has been updated to correct errors. I’ve also added omissions from the original post. We eat seasonally in the IK, though ours is not the precious pastime of snooty Northern Californians. Yes, we live an area of agricultural bounty, making seasonal eating easy and pleasurable. Yet this…