Gluten-free

Quinoa with roasted vegetables

5 October 2012 Food
Thumbnail image for Quinoa with roasted vegetables

I’m not one for trends, food or otherwise, so it took me a while to bring quinoa (“keen-wah”) into my kitchen. But now I’ve developed a real fondness for this crunchy little pseudo-grain with a funny tail. It’s easy to make, versatile, keeps well and satisfies the increasing number of friends I know who are [...]

Read the full article →

Taco salad

29 June 2012 Chicken/poultry
Thumbnail image for Taco salad

Aside from being a happily addictive way to enjoy a huge bowl of vegetables, this taco salad is the ideal antidote to an overindulgent taco night. Even though we’ve gone lighter and healthier on taco filling by doing away with the seasoning packet and using ground turkey, it’s still easy to go overboard with rich [...]

Read the full article →

California Greek salad

24 April 2012 Food
Thumbnail image for California Greek salad

To me the cooking ideal of fresh, seasonal and local is hardest to live up to in the spring. Summer is bounty time; crisp fall brings novel late-harvest crops; cold winter welcomes hearty root vegetables and winter squashes. But spring’s warmer air and bright green landscape tickle yearnings for fresh new produce. And right now [...]

Read the full article →

Flourless oatmeal lace cookies

11 April 2012 Food
Thumbnail image for Flourless oatmeal lace cookies

Karma brought a surprise plate of crispy, buttery, brown-sugary oatmeal lace cookies to my door this weekend, in a cycle that began with my father-in-law Dave, a great doctor and much-loved local personality, who decades ago aided his neighbor Libbie and earned a lifetime of derby pie deliveries at Christmas. When my husband and I [...]

Read the full article →

Risi e bisi (rice and peas)

22 February 2012 Food
Thumbnail image for Risi e bisi (rice and peas)

It seems like a dish for old folks and babies – a softly comforting thick soup, eaten with a spoon. But in fact risi e bisi (pronounced REE-see ay BEE-see) is a classic Venetian dish, traditionally served to the Doge during the spring festival of Venice’s patron saint, St Mark. Though in modern Italy this [...]

Read the full article →

Alice Waters’s carrot soup

1 February 2012 Food
Thumbnail image for Alice Waters’s carrot soup

It doesn’t seem like it could possibly be interesting, or delectable, or surprising: carrot soup, made simply with onion, broth, a bit of thyme and a whole lot of carrots. No ginger, curry or any of your typical carrot soup dress-me-ups. Alice Waters is bold enough to leave humble carrots to stand on their own. [...]

Read the full article →

Tea eggs

7 January 2012 Asian
Thumbnail image for Tea eggs

I’m relieved it’s January. I love the spirit of holiday season, but I’m thrilled to leave the holiday pressures of gifts and travel behind. Though there’s a lot of winter ahead, we are inching our way into longer days. I felt wistful as December closed, but January brings fresh hope. I enjoyed Christmas cookies for [...]

Read the full article →

Chinese green beans

19 November 2011 Asian
Thumbnail image for Chinese green beans

Chinese green beans may not seem like the most obviously perfect dish for Thanksgiving, but these really are. At a table laden with buttery bread stuffing, creamy mashed potatoes and candied sweet potatoes, lightly seasoned crisp-tender string beans make so much more sense than a heavy green bean casserole. My mom is famous for these [...]

Read the full article →

Easy cranberry sauce

15 November 2011 Food
Thumbnail image for Easy cranberry sauce

I’ve decided the way to tackle Thanksgiving this year is one manageable step at a time. Thanksgiving dinner isn’t hard, it’s just the number of dishes that can be daunting. This year I’m all about easy. We all choose our cheats for Thanksgiving. My mom always used dried stuffing mix, and my mother-in-law would make [...]

Read the full article →

Mediterranean dip

12 November 2011 Food
Thumbnail image for Mediterranean dip

I’ve learned more about dips during my time in the Midwest. Midwesterners love warm dips – cheesy artichoke, nacho cheese with Ro-Tel, and more recently, buffalo chicken (yes, chicken in the dip). Northern California is more of a cold-dip-and-veggies kind of place – guacamole, hummus, and the occasional spinach dip in a sourdough bread bowl. [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries