I am speed adverse. I cross-country ski rather than downhill, and close my eyes on roller coasters.

My sole sibling, Heather, loves speed and action. Take this loosely drawn-from-memory photo of (more…)

Tomorrow begins the year of the snake on the Chinese lunar calendar. The Chinese New Year’s celebration lasts fifteen days, giving DCCC members and all Chinese food fans lots of time to prepare and eat traditional New Year’s foods.

By wonderful happenstance, DCCC members are currently cooking from The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young. In this single volume, you’ll find plenty of New Year’s food suggestions to carry you through the festivities. On pages 194−95 Grace has included a useful sidebar called “Recipes to Celebrate the New Year,” and on page 218 there are four New Year’s menus.

Per Grace’s suggestion for something very simple but very New Year’s appropriate, I made David Camacho’s Stir-Fried Shiitake Mushrooms (page 144 in the book). Mushrooms, Grace said, portend rising fortunes because they grow quickly. I used crimini mushrooms because the shiitake did not look too hot at my local market. The stir-fry’s pleasant peppery bite was a reminder that ginger alone, sans chili, can supply plenty of subtle heat. Simple, delicious, and fast to prepare, it was the perfect dish to re-awaken the spirit of my old wok that’s been sitting tucked away for too long.

I once dated a Palestinian man. He taught me how to make a proper plate of hummus, and he introduced me to za’atar, which turned into a life-long love affair.

Za’atar is a Middle Eastern spice blend made with the herb za’atar, sumac, sesame seeds, and salt (and sometimes (more…)

Has a memory of a food ever made you crazy with longing for it? If yes, then you’re a living, breathing human. But what if a memory of a food, so real you can feel, taste, smell, and see it, cannot be substantiated on this planet Earth, making you feel like you might be crazy. Did you imagine that childhood food that no one other than your brothers and sisters, and I mean no one, has heard of? Did you dream it?

It took the current DCCC pick, Secrets of a Jewish Baker, to make Bhakti Ziek, a DCCC club member, realize that in fact her adolescent memory of an unusual rye bread known to her family as (more…)

My friend Debra Samuels is a food writer, cookbook author, world traveler, and a member of this cookbook club. I was thrilled when she told me that she planned to pick up a copy of our current club pick—Secrets of a Jewish Baker.

In fact, Deb helped me get a jump-start on the book when I visited her in Boston early last month. We started the sour rye starter and made bagels together. Bagels are great fun to make and surprisingly easy! Deb did have one advantage over me, I realized, as we wrapped the ropes of bagel dough around the palms of our hands: she has petite hands, matching her petite frame, compared to my large hands, matching my 5’10” height. It took extra work for this beginner to (more…)

It’s the height of the holiday baking season. That usually means sweet indulgences. No complaints there, but sometimes not everything should be sweet. Take the American muffin. It’s gone on a sugar binge that mirrors the American waistline.

After wondering what happened to the muffin of not THAT long ago, the muffin of the last century, actually, I did some research and wrote this story, which was published in the Boston Globe today: “Whatever Happened to the Great American Muffin?”

And here, available to DCCC readers only, are two supplements to the story: 1) The Muffin Timeline and 2) an insider look at (more…)

Without intending to write a follow-up to my last posting on heirloom seeds, I’ve done so with this story, which deals with the other h word—heritage breeds.

A couple of weeks ago, after having done the work of making a double batch of David Leite’s Amped-Up Red Pepper Paste as well as his Piri-Piri Sauce, both in his cookbook The New Portuguese Table, I decided to make two poultry recipes that would highlight their flavors.

I started with Leite’s Quick Weekday Roast Chicken with Potaotes. The chicken is (more…)

I used to think the difference between a tortilla and frittata is that the former is flipped and returned to the pan to brown and the latter is browned in the oven.

Why I ever wanted to categorize, classify, and clarify, in my own mind, the characteristics of the frittata versus tortilla, I don’t know. David Leite’s recipe for a sausage tortilla in his cookbook The New Portuguese Table freed me from that pointless exercise, which is not to the main point: enjoying a delicious egg dish, whatever its regional names or styles of making.

Leite’s tortilla, or tortilha in Portuguese, similar to (more…)

On the fourth glorious day of eating Green Olive Dip, while sitting on our front porch in our Victorian neighborhood, I realized what is so intriguing about this dip. And why I love David Leite’s cookbook The New Portuguese Table and the Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club.

To my non-Portuguese palate, evolved from a one part mid-Western, one part Southern, but entirely anchovy-free diet, there is something ever so slightly (more…)

This past weekend, while driving home from a late summer swim, I saw an unusual sign for free tomatoes by the side of a back road. Unusual because here in Vermont, during the last few years, tomatoes have either been (more…)