recipes

The Thinking Woman’s Chocolate Chip Cookie

-as adapted from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc cookbook Makes: 2 1/2 dozen cookies Prep time: 30 minutes plus 36 hours in the freezer before baking (If you are chopping the chocolate yourself, be sure to sift any tiny fragments of chocolate out by sifting the chocolate before putting it into the dough.)

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 […]

ask-lea

Where could I get holly?

Dear Lea, Where could I get “armfuls of holly” as shown in your post about arrangements? I absolutely loved the one mixed with roses! I found holly in quantity at the local nursery, where they were selling it by the branch.  I’m so glad you liked the roses and holly arrangement!  Thanks for writing in.  Best, Lea

food

Vegetarian Vegetable Alphabet Soup

This is a recipe built off a memory. When I was small, I ate only two things for lunch: Campbell’s chicken noodle or vegetarian vegetable soup. This went on for years, and I still love them both, but my own chicken noodle soup is better (just saying!), and I realized that I needed to recreate the vegetarian vegetable soup. I remember moving the little alphabet letters around with my spoon, trying to make up words. What kid wouldn’t have been […]