Hello Friends, Last October, at the tail end of tomato season, when the sungolds were still arriving in droves at our little co-op, I made this sauce on repeat. It calls for minimal prep, a handful of ingredients, and a quick roast at high heat, but produces a sauce that tastes like so much more: sweet and bright and fresh all at once. Truly, summer in a sauce. If you’ve made these roasted broccoli steaks, you know this sauce. In that recipe it’s referred to as “tomato butter,” and it calls...
14 days ago • 1 min read
Hello Friends, A few weeks ago, I stopped by my aunt and uncle’s house in Vermont en route home from a soccer tournament with my daughters. It was a Sunday, late in the afternoon, and we couldn’t stay long, so we made the most of it, sliding into stools around their big farmhouse table, ready to receive all the nourishment time would allow. Within minutes of arriving, my aunt had toasted us thick slices of peasant bread and slathered them with butter. As we savored our toast, she poured us...
23 days ago • 2 min read
Hello Friends, In yesterday's newsletter, which I've included below, I shared a garlic confit how-to. After hitting send, I received a number of emails with questions about storing, and I realized I never shared a link to the actual recipe, which included storage notes. For future reference, you can find the recipe here, but in sum, you should store the garlic confit in the fridge and try to consume it within 2 weeks. Here's a note from Bon Appetit: “In most cases, confited garlic is...
27 days ago • 2 min read
Hello Friends, I have been wanting to learn how to make garlic confit since April, when I tasted the sweet caramelized cloves on a pizza at Rose Pizzeria in Berkeley. I am a garlic lover and don't mind any amount of raw garlic, but I loved the mellow garlic flavor the confited cloves infused in this particular pie. It turns out garlic confit is shockingly easy to make. Place 1.5 cups of garlic cloves in a pot and cover with 1 cup of extra-virgin olive oil: Cover the pot and place in a 250ºF...
28 days ago • 1 min read
... crank up that broiler! Hello Friends, I am currently in CT visiting my parents with my sister and her family. Last night, a storm rolled in just as my mother hoped to turn on the grill for chicken souvlaki. She waited it out briefly, but with eight little pairs of hungry eyes asking when dinner would be ready, she opted to use her broiler instead. It worked beautifully. The chicken emerged glistening and golden with just the right amount of char. Many of you know I love using my broiler...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
I first learned about Rummo pasta from my friend Colu's newsletter and then more recently from my friend Phoebe who writes about why "slow-dried" pasta is easier to digest in her latest book Carbivore. Watch a clip of her explaining why Italian pasta actually has more gluten but is easier to digest here — I found this fascinating! Rummo pasta, which I can find at Hannafords, Whole Foods, and other shops, utilizes a slow-drying or "lenta" process, and should you be needing a last-minute...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
More than any other time of the year, this one feels the most chaotic, an endless stream of end-of-year school parties, graduations, field days, ice cream socials, weekend tournaments, and moving-up ceremonies … to high school! 😢. When I bump into friends dashing through the grocery store, I get the sense the feeling is shared. Often I leave the house at 3:45 in the afternoon and don’t return till 8, and if I haven’t planned dinner before departing, it will mean Jersey Mike’s or Chipotle for...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Ricotta: A Love Story. Friends, where to begin? I spent much of my life thinking I disliked ricotta, thanks no doubt to my introduction to it: dining hall lasagna and stuffed shells, whose fillings left me considering it nothing more than a grainy, watery, flavorless paste. Ina Garten and her recipe for homemade ricotta showed me the light, revealing how creamy and fluffy the good stuff can be. And Missy Robbins showed me that whipping ricotta — blending it in a food processor until smooth —...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
About this time of year last year, I discovered Bachan's Japanese Barbecue Sauce. It's both a marinade and a sauce, and it's delicious. I typically use it on chicken thighs but my mother — who had never purchased a bottled marinade in her life before trying this one — regularly uses it to marinate arctic char. High praise! If you're pressed for time or are looking for an easy-peasy grilled recipe for the long weekend, I can't recommend it enough. Earlier this week, I salted and marinated my...
2 months ago • 1 min read
