food

The Thinking Woman’s Chocolate Chip Cookie

Everyone loves homemade chocolate chip cookies. It’s almost impossible to make a bad one. But it’s natural to be curious about the other chocolate chip cookie recipes out there. If there’s an ingredient that hasn’t been folded into the recipe for novelty’s sake at this point (bacon, chocolate, cherries), I can’t imagine what it is. Garlic, maybe. But what if you gave a chocolate chip cookie recipe the kind of close attention and precision you’d give a soufflé or sourdough […]

food

Roast Turkey with Caraway Seeds

My Bohemian grandmother used caraway seed in her cooking all the time – in soft and salty rye bread, with dill in scrambled eggs, with pork loins and bread dumplings with sauerkraut – even in the Thanksgiving sage stuffing. It has a distinctive flavor that I’ve always loved, and if you haven’t tried it on your Thanksgiving turkey, this might be the year. And the gravy from the caraway-rich drippings! Don’t miss it – it’s amazing, maybe the best thing […]

food

Butternut Squashed Soup with Lime Cream

This is a decadent autumn soup very similar to one we used to serve at the White House. It was so good that people would scrape their bowls to finish it. I like soups for a first course in the fall and winter, in small cream-colored soup bowls. The smaller, handled bowls hold just enough to whet the appetite for the rest of the meal, and it’s a simple and comforting beginning. It would make a great starter for a […]