“I want to take Jerusalem food outside,” I’d said excitedly to Mike and Otto (boyfriend and cat, respectively) about ten days ago when we finally got our first glimpse of spring in Vermont.

This simple idea hit me like sudden blinding ray of light. I would start on the front porch and then, like the movable gnomes in the movie Amélie, I would take the food of Jerusalem on the road to various picnic spots around the state, or at least around town, to show you my environs. It would get me out of the house—it’s been a LONG winter—and challenge my photography skills.

I need things to get a little bit messy. When you (more…)

“Mellow, “unctuous,” and “melting away in the mouth” are some of the words Lesley Porcelli uses to describe vegetables that have been cooked using “The Soft Approach,” a form of low and slow cooking and the name of her story, part personal revere and part well-defended thesis, published in this month’s Saveur magazine.

I like the way she thinks. After all, (more…)