I keep a list of food holidays on my desk, both because it’s inspiration for this blog, and because it gives me an excuse to make something like a chocolate milkshake in the middle of the day for no apparent reason. Today is National Chocolate Milkshake Day, as you probably surmise. After I take food photos, which is a bit of a frantic process when it involves something melty like ice cream or a cocktail, the food remains, waiting to […]
Most families have at least one favorite recipe that they use for special occasions and family get-togethers. It’s usually an old 3×5 card, stained by sticky fingers, rubbed off in some parts, with comments scribbled in the margins. These recipes are tried and true, the backbone of good American cooking, and I want to share one of those from my friends Gail and Scott Brown. They make these peanut butter finger bars for birthday parties and summer barbecues on the […]
A cookie can be so many things: a hearty breakfast substitute, a dainty two-bite morsel, or a guilt-inducing volcano of instant gratification. I love them all! Here are five of my favorite recipes, from the righteous to the utterly self-indulgent, which, if you slip into the school week, will undoubtedly be met by shouts of surprise and delight. I’ve been making the Big Breakfast Cookie since the Silver Palate cookbook came out, and they were a popular item in the […]
Old family recipes are little treasures, comfortable rest stops on the roadmap of a family’s history. Since I’ve been writing this blog I’ve been receiving family recipes from friends and followers of the site and it’s been amazingly consistent: every recipe I’ve tried has been better than good. It seems there is a universality about family recipes, no matter the background or means or region, everybody’s got one, and there’s a reason they keep handing it down from generation to […]
Julia Child once famously said, “A party without cake is just a meeting.” I agree, and since today is my birthday, my gift to you is the recipe for my favorite cake of all time. It is my mother’s recipe, from the recipe book she made for me as a wedding gift many years ago. This cake is similar to an Italian vanilla meringue cake, and has a lot of sugar in it. I hesitated initially to post the recipe […]
