Dorie’s “My Newest Gourgeres” Will Turn Your Head

If Dorie Greenspan thinks that just because she publishes a souped up, fancy schmancy, new and improved recipe for gourgeres I’m going to kick her oldest recipe for gourgeres the curb, well, she has another thing coming. (“My Newest Gourgeres”, page 8, “Everyday Dorie: The Way I Cook”) No ma’am. I am way too loyal to her classic […]

Zucchini Fritters with Tzatziki

Tzadziki is now finding its way onto French tables, Dorie’s included, as a sauce for sandwiches, tartines, and even as a dressing for fresh vegetables and salads. A dollop of this stuff on a few slices of tomatoes given to us by a friend was the culinary highlight of my week. Just sayin’.

Lemon Carrot Confiture

Third Place Winner at the Orange County Fair! I apologize for my tardiness in bringing you this award-winning preserve. Life has been out-of-control busy since this blog (that’s me!) won the “Best of Show” prize at the 2012 Orange County Fair last summer. My genre-busting, step-by-step treatise on Mussels and Chorizo scored a big win with the […]

Mayonnaise Recipe – Family Style!

My office chum Chet really needs my family’s mayonnaise recipe.  Last week we had a chat  about kids. All our chats are about kids. This is because Chet’s kids are all Chet ever has to talk about. Chet’s kids keep him so busy in fact, that other than between the work hours of 8AM and […]

Herbed Olives

French Fridays with Dorie Haiku Catch-Up Olives are one of those foods I did not appreciate until later in life.   And by “later in life” I mean just a few months ago. Weird, huh?  One day I didn’t like ’em, the next I did.  Just like that. I’ve heard that our tastes buds will […]

Rhubarb Parfait in Jars

French Fridays with Dorie I’ve been trying to no avail to think up some witty prose about this rhubarb parfait to share with you. Rhubarb just isn’t that funny. In fact, it usually looks a bit scary sitting in the produce section after its long flight or truck ride to the market. To my eyes […]

Caesar Salad Dressing

One New Year’s Resolution I made back in January was something I didn’t talk much about at the time. I just did it. I tossed out all the bottles of store bought salad dressings that had been crowding out nearly one shelf of my refrigerator. Along with the vowed not to buy bottled salad dressings […]

I Wish I Made More of This:

We had friends over for dinner last week and once again I was not inspired to do anything special for hors d’oeuvres. I’m not an appetizer kind of cook. Never found much inspiration there I suppose. Who sits around and dreams of appetizers to serve at a dinner party? All the action is at the […]

Make Something, Buy Something…

The best advice comes from Ina (as usual.) When it comes to entertaining: “Make something, then buy something.” That was our approach last night when we hosted our dearest friends. We hadn’t seen them in so long that neither of us wanted to pull kitchen duty and miss out on the chit-chat. There is a […]

Crock Pot White Bean Chili – Cheater!

So Ms. Fig posts her recipe for Pomegranate Jelly and labels it a “cheater version” for using bottled pomegranate juice? I commented that using bottled juice is no more a cheat than using canned chicken stock in soup, something I do most of the time I make it. (Although to do soup it up with […]

Camera Cleanout: Cranberry Sauce

Time for a camera clean-out. This should have gone up a long time ago but now that I think about it, there is value to holiday cooking postmortems since many Christmas dinners look a lot like Thanksgiving dinners. I saw lots of discussions on turkey, stuffing, various side dishes, and pies this year but not […]